You called it a chat about tidying

up your affairs of state, the long way off

day in which I would be left alone

to deal with the phone calls

and the letters

and you sat back in the gathering cold,

arms folded and I saw in your eyes

that perhaps it was not as

long away as I thought.

 

We talked of football,

nearly always the same topic of conversation

we had always had, spliced occasionally

with talk, mostly from me,

of theatre and of visiting home.