Wedding Blues - A Poem

Amedeo Modigliani - Portrait of Lunia Czechowska

Wedding Blues

I must admit that,

after all those years,

spotting you beside the canapés

gave me quite a start.

I mumbled an excuse,

retreated to the bar

and now stand hidden in the crowd

nursing an indifferent Jack and Coke

and a scar

I’ve just discovered,

right below my heart.

How long has it been?

I flip the curl-edged pages of my life

and find us.  Early college days.

Future yet unmapped.

Shared mates, shared classes,

breaks in the canteen.

Bumpy bus-rides all around the town

on evenings when the sun refused to set.

One night, a coy techno-haloed fumble,

and back to our daily selves.

Then, as in a sepia print,

that morning when you stopped seeking me out,

and a mutual friend, whose name I can’t recall

ventured an unsubtle hint

that some guys are heartless, play too hard to get,

or are just too dumb

to know they have struck gold.

It was then it dawned on me

that our manoeuvres in the dark

which I considered a good-natured lark,

might actually have been

that strange, elusive thing called Love.

All told,

I have since then compiled

a trove of such goodbyes -   

an album to dip into on rainy afternoons.

It should have been so easy, then, 

to walk right up to you,

pluck useless, well-worn phrases

out of the fan-cooled air.

“What a surprise!

You getting along?”

“You haven’t changed at all!”

“Looking great, my dear...”

(All true, this, by the by)

Instead, I plan a quick escape,

greet the bride and groom

and head back to my car.

I hold your silhouette and a budding song.

It will, I guess, suffice.