fleeting romance

after Joe Bolton

we danced once back in ‘94
before the long waste of my life
you taking pity on me (I felt)
an abstruse friendless teenage boy

we waltzed across the Hounslow road
and out into the lights
and maybe you were trying to forget
what made those bruises on your arms

or trying to stall returning home
to parents you no longer loved
but in any case it is
my one warm thought of childhood

the two of us dancing
as fleeting as it was…

I don’t believe in afterlives
and lonely still at 42
shopping at night
and working ill-paid thankless jobs

I think the dance was as close as I came
to any sort of soul