Salome

“I thought you'd be pleased,” she said
when she presented me
with the typescript of our conversation.

Well I was, in a way, flattered at least,
but I'd never intended
what I'd said to have such permanence.

Better such things to be viewed
through the veil of memory.

29 October 1989

Odd that the last of my poems for B. doesn’t include a dedication. Of course I didn’t realise it was going to be the last or why it turned out to be the last. All I can say is that I didn’t write a poem for months after this and it isn’t a very good poem and the next batch are all based on scraps I had lying around. The next original poem didn’t come until August 1991. I can’t complain really. This was the most prolific I’ve ever been and it was both wonderful and horrible at the same time.

When I showed B. this poem the first question she asked was had I been secretly recording our conversations. I hadn’t. The thought hadn’t even occurred to me but now I wish I had. Now I struggle to remember her voice. Whereas with the original Salome the veils came off with my Salome they’re going on.

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