Maybe the Ex-Queen ...for Melly

Maybe the Ex-Queen

In my dream I was packing for Anjuna

clothes selected for your funeral

tightly pressed in your old suitcase

and I ripped a page from a book

with a special poem, but I didn’t look

and now I’m awake I’m at a loss

as to what it was

 – perhaps Fleur Adcock?

 I know you knew if I was well enough

I’d have come while you were alive

I’d have tended to your needs

and you to mine

and we’d have fought

as we always did

trigger happy tarts

targeting each other’s hearts

in a transactional analytical field day kind of way

but now we were in our fifties

we had a nifty plan

to meet on the beach

(in Goa or Brighton)

and try out some gentler manoeuvres

One two three four

I declare a thumb war

Fuck!

I didn’t think you’d come astride a terrestrial body,

your hair crackling, your eyes like comet-sparks*

the Full Moon in Taurus

as close as she’s ever been

to Earth in our lifetime,

but I’d never doubted that you’d win.

No, I never doubted that you’d win.

* Fleur Adcock’s The Ex-Queen among the Astronomers