by John Grey

 

So where is my lost love now, I wonder.
Picking up the kids after school,
taking the daughter to dance,
dropping off the boy to soccer.

And what does her husband look like?
He surely has his own business,
profitable enough to keep
the family in gym shorts and tutus.

And she probably works for her husband,
typing up his invoices, writing letters
to delinquent accounts. Doesn’t draw a salary
just a hug from time to time.

She would have been a writer, I’m thinking,
but that’s been deferred. Besides, her husband
wouldn’t understand a word of what she writes.
He’s good with his hands though.

And when you’ve got kids, it’s so hard to
be yourself. And throw in a house and
a mortgage. No way that she could even
be the one that I remember.

Still attractive but not seventeen any more.
And not love only for the gangling kid
in Iron Maiden t-shirt, but generous
with affection to the point of no one getting any.

Best she stays where she is now, I reckon.
Kids need a mother more than a novelist.
And what does a husband need? It’s more
a case of what it is he gets.

And look what I found, a note she handed me
in class, what seems a hundred years ago.
Silly and unabashed, honest and heart-breaking.
See, that’s what wondering gets you.