Goiter

Our eyes met and we smiled. In that gaze I realised,
I did not know you. Had though you someone that
I used to know, twenty years ago. Who'd be much older now.

For a year, maybe two, we'd lunch, with Viv,
the Thai on Brixton Hill, or other place
you both twenty something, single, and I
had a baby girl. Later we were joined by Bob.
Plates rich steaming, gently spiced, with
vicious pickles optional, declined,
the windows damp, opaque, enclosing us with
builders, council workers, hurried mothers, where
you'd search for hidden meanings, abstract clues,
(I didn't know what to), in all our mundane talk.
A building surveyor. Your job seemed wrong,
like some odd growth to weigh you down.
But you were happy when a contractor
accepted your offer of herbal tea.
Things are changing, you said.
You practiced yoga. It was a gift, you told,
or compensation really, from some god
who'd shown pity.
Desire and time in that cafe just drifted, uncondensed, away.

Bob was older, looked piratical, watchful, funny-cynical,
he soon took lunchtime centre stage.
He’d been off work (in rehab, people said) for some long time,
and told us of his neighbours, a real problem, who
tormented them, well, just his wife. They’d call her name,
not loudly, but again and again, over the garden wall.
He showed a black tooth when he laughed

Time shifted, moved us on, I only saw you one more time,
among distracted south bank crowds. And then saw Bob.
He laughed and rubbed his hands. I realised
you’d been together for some time.
He seemed to suit you like a goiter would.
(A goiter is the bodies response to iodine deficiency -
a compensation, in fact, for this missing element -
resulting in an unsightly, often debilitating, growth).
I'm hardly being fair.

Memory flash of distant days. I dropped my eyes to break the gaze.
The new you (not you), came forward with a confident strong smile,
an echo so distorted I, confused, made an awkward shrugging gesture
and some moment seemed to pass, as you left and as I entered Yoga class.