For a long—long
Time I couldn’t remember
Your name—
The word for you
I had forgotten
But carried the image
Within me like
First love—a ghost that hid
In an empty room
Behind a door that was always
Closed—

In the country ruins
Of two lost souls
Around which the years
Of neglect and growth
Crumbled stone and mortar
Now made entry impossible—

But who sat in the drawing room
Sipping tea from white china
Without me—and sketched
A vision of you from memory?