The linden tree

I have many blessings
This I know...
My friends tell me
through goldfish bowls of Chardonnay
I don't know how lucky I am...

This life has become one long photo show
for a once-in-a-lifetime holiday
- see, how happy we are
and look, at how beautiful it is -
when all along you know
the food was bad, the hotel was cold
and you rowed, rowed, rowed

I don't remember when I stopped believing
fulfilment could be found in a person
Or who told me not to settle
for second best
I can't pinpoint the exact day when
-suddenly- it was too late to have a child

15 years ago

We walked up to the linden tree
You fiddled with the aperture, the timer
and we sat, statue still, counting
29...30... and you rushed off to see it...
...came running back to me, to show, like a child

The people in that photo looked carefree
like they didn't care that they lived
in a bedsit with a gas fire that popped
and burned blue and orange and black
Didn't mind sleeping in a single bed
moulded to each other like plastercine

Now

Lately, at night, when my eyes are gritty and sore
and won't stay shut, I catch myself willing you
to keep breathing, to keep your lungs inhaling and exhaling
Like a nervous flyer, a moment missed
and I'd lose you. Sometimes you sigh
and I wonder... if you settled for me

I want us to go back to that linden tree
sit down in it's soft forgiving shade
- you can adjust the exposure to lighten the years
filter in some kind of soft focus - count 29...30
I want you to show it, I want you to say
see, how happy we are
and look, at how beautiful it is.