late September

A SOFT-EDGED REED OF LIGHT

"That was the house where you asked me to remain

on the eve of my planned departure. Do you remember?

The house remembers it – the deal table

with the late September sun stretched on its back.

As long as you like, you said, and the chairs, the clock,

the diamond leaded lights in the pine-clad alcove

of that 1960s breakfast-room were our witnesses.

I had only meant to stay for a week

but you reached out a hand, the soft white cuff of your shirt

open at the wrist, and out in the yard,

the walls of the house considered themselves

in the murk of the lily-pond, and it was done.

Done. Whatever gods had bent to us then to whisper,

Here is your remedy – take it – here, your future,

either they lied or we misheard.

How changed we are now, how superior

after the end of it – the unborn children,

the mornings that came with a soft-edged reed of light

over and over, the empty rooms we woke to.

And yet if that same dark-haired boy

were to lean towards me now, with one shy hand

bathed in September sun, as if to say,

All things are possible – then why not this?

I’d take it still, praying it might be so."

© 2008, Julia Copus
Publisher: The Spectator, London, 2008