May I ask a favour,
one that might upset you
as it upsets me;
just for one day,
on our anniversary,
do I have to mourn you?
Would it be O.K.
that today
on the day we remember
twenty-one years together,
that you allow me to grieve for you
without breaking my heart?
Our time was brief,
I knew of you for ten minutes,
before that I had never
heard your name;
yet somehow you have stayed
in my head longer than most women.
Your head in my lap,
I cradled you to sleep
and when your breath was silent,
still, forgotten, I remembered you,
may I now, for one day mourn you
without seeing your face.
The sirens punctured the air,
the dead night once more alive,
as your blessed blood caressed
my shirt, people gathered
around paying respects to us both,
may I now forget you.
I know our lives are forever entwined
in that moment, I grieve for you,
I wish your life had been full,
not taken away as I held your hand
on a cold October evening,
the dead of Salisbury Market Square.
Ian D. Hall 2016