A Note for Jennifer

I met you some twelve years ago
in Northwood; you were awkward, shy
and cheerful. In mid-twenties I,
befamilied round; you too were so.
But you had not a soul in tow.

Your father, mother, brother seemed
upon a continent apart.
My wife, child, I were off the chart –
a married foreignness that screamed
of seas, of jutting rocks half-dreamed.

Your brother told me of your death:
and how for twelve months you had tried
that course so well. A waste of breath
my jabbering days, when set beside
your life, made pilot-like by how you died.