Broke, almost, I came home by coach.
I’d gone there with my girlfriend of three years,
then left her three days after meeting you.
I’d gone there with my girlfriend of three years,
then left her three days after meeting you.
You liked me but I didn’t move you, couldn’t,
not as some could, and we slept together twice,
to prove it, in the studio I’d moved to
and where (there was a piano but no heating)
I’d sit, mid-Chopin, sobbing hoarse, raw sobs
I didn’t know I had inside me. Outside
Calais, the traffic thickened as we passed
a burnt-out pile-up, maybe twenty vehicles.
C’est quelque chose, our driver said to the guy
in the toll-booth, vraiment quelque chose.
Richard Meier’s debut collection, Misadventure, will be published by Picador in March 2012 priced £8.99.
Photograph by g-alain
