One popped up today
Randomly as of course they will -
Counting the left-foot paces towards the station
As is my wont and calculating
The diagonal steps saved crossing the road...

Nigh on fifty years ago
I told her we were finished
Oh no she said, not so we've barely started!
But finished we were and never spoke again
A new face, a new mind had entered...

She with whom I discussed books,
Sartre de Beauvoir Greer Camus Kafka
Talking like the down-pipes in a downpour.
She who tried me to see how generous I was
deliberately testing my wallet willingness
as I was aware, and it seems I passed the test.

With her children I passed 15 tumultuous years
And then departed never to speak to any of them again.
A fierce combative woman but forgotten more or less.
Only the lost paintings are regretted and resented
And the books she spitefully destroyed. Such is life.