Schooldays

It striked my eye
a firework
half light half dark
it sparkled up
and dropped on the ground
to the sound of a tear.
My love
salty
lying in my room
like a tiger fur,

eye to eye.

The car idles outside.
I write your name, here
my heart’s recipient.
I write your second name
on my wrist,
with all the precision of a schoolgirl.

It reads well -
as if you were given
utterly to me.

We first met under the willow, and yet
might it have started
before, unnamed.
That low sunset gave us a sole evening,
before the first winter snow fell.
Can you recall
the complete indifference to the cold around us?
As if we were not
its usual inhabitants.
We are not boy and girl anymore.
Now, grown out of school-days stupor,

my pillow holds the scent only of your dream.
But recall, we've dreamed twice,
and on the second we resolved
never to return.