for Helen

Darling though you are gone
I will not lose you
you are my citizen
you make me human
let me talk on
I will not abuse you

You wander through the streets of my mind
though now another
woman to whom I am blind
is Helen in another land
O when we could understand and stand
each other

I knew you uncertain, determined
to honour life with accurate response
who could not seriously pretend
who drew up funny plans
who hurts me now as snowflakes touch the wind
who loved me once

I was in Glasgow now, she still in Oxford. At some point later she said the penultimate line was the most beautiful line of poetry I’d written for her. She had however “moved on”, which I found harder to do.