Already Dies. Poem by Terry Collett

After the service
at the church

on Sunday morning
in 1962

she and you
leaving the choir

and she taking your hand
in hers and staying behind

until the others had gone
she kisses your lips

and the echo
of the organ’s drone

silent and the smell
of her mother’s

borrowed scent
lingering in the air

and knowing her sister
would be waiting outside

prepared to tell her mother
if she caught glimpse of kiss

or any hold of hands
and half deaf organist

Mr Lundon stomping about
in the organ loft above

and all you wanted
was to stay there

with the kiss and love
and her lips and the look

in her big blue eyes
not knowing then

that all things
however good

move on and something
inside her already dies.