You're a stranger to me now.
I wouldn't recognise you in a crowd
although people who know us both
say how much I look like you.
I remember you going grey,
that same process of coal to ash
I watch burning me,
the thinning of hot matter.
In my memory, you're always thirty,
with those blue-green eyes
somewhere between solid and liquid,
a state I identify as mine.
You are nearly an old man.
I haven't seen you for twenty years
and I'd probably walk right past
unaware of these marks we share.
Two days with dad,
the lurch of loyalties
heavy as the gear change
in his white Vauxhall van.
On Mondays in the playground
I felt the fierce snap of jealousy.
Friends talking of humble things:
family meals, summer holidays.
Sensitive at seven,
guilt and anger were pedals I pounded
with conflicting pressure
on the path home from school.