Step Inside

So long.

So long ago, I fell for you.

I was eleven.

You were thirty and married.

I carried your photograph,

from a newspaper, I think.

Beaming smile, laughing eyes,

hair of deep red (ginger).

Pictured with your love.

You looked so happy.

In those days,

there were horses in the field

on the way to school.

Before Barratt and Persimmon

built their Georgian shoe-boxes.

For a short time, as other heads filled with Slade

or David Bowie, I played your greatest hits.

Adored your voice. The power and the passion.

Its sweetness.

As Barratt's houses filled the meadow row-by-row,

I turned to Bowie, Floyd.

Abandoned you for pastures more becoming

of adolescent boyhood.

But last Sunday,

as I watched the breaking news across a bar,

I knew exactly where that record was.