First Poem

My first attempt at poetry was scribbled down in the back of Brian Grogan Lecture Theatre on the Saturday morning of the festival. Not that I was bored, or not listening, but I was inspired and curious to try. I don't know any rules and I put the line breaks where I felt like it, so it's probably better off in the Bad Poetry Resort. But I'm going to once again use the excuse that it was my first ever poem.

Between two and three years
And still whenever you open your door
Twice or thrice a week
And stand there in a t-shirt, hair sticking up
Some weekend morning
Or still in your suit and coat some cold night, to let me inside
You look, for a second, like a stranger
Not what I expected.
Then I have to remember that we own each other
And know each other more than anyone else knows us
Or at least
Are supposed to.

After a handful of minutes I recognise you again
Place you in your allocated space in my life
Sweep off the dust that collects there
And put you back up in your spot
And think nothing more of it.
But after we say goodbye, for another night or two,
The dust of memory and imagination
Grows over your vacant place again
Even though you are less than an hour away.

Probably the you in my phone is too far separated from
And not as warm as
The you in your doorway, in the flesh.
Probably it is because you are never here
In my box room at the top of a spiral
That barely fits my belongings and I
And surely couldn't hold your presence too
Expansive and relaxed as it is
In contrast with my cramped, meek one.