The Professionals Circuit Archive - A December Reverie       A December
Reverie

 

by Jane

  
 I used to think,
 How strange, to look into your face
 And see love there...
 It was your eyes that spoke to me, first,
 So green, so knowing, caring.
 When was it?
 A year ago? No, two!
 Time flies, when you're having fun...
 When you're falling in love.
 There I was,
 Flat out on the road, watching them
 Trying to rig an IV,
 Wondering if I was going to become
 A road toll statistic --
 December, 1983.
 Christmas.
 Think of it!
 Angola, the Congo, Germany --
 Terrorists couldn't kill me,
 But here's an old man in a
 Silly little economy car...
 'Here lies William Andrew Phillip Bodie,
 Swiped off his bike near the
 Blackfriars Tube Station
 By a pensioner in a British Leyland...
 R.I.P.'
 Seems funny now.
 Look back and smile, you say.
 But there you were,
 With those green eyes,
 And I saw the glitter there.
 Tears, Ray? For me?
 I never knew you cared!
 Well, a man's got a heart, hasn't he?
 Well, some of us have...
 Mine ached for you,
 Although I held my silence,
 Standing beside you while the
 Bloody machines, like clocks,
 Ticked your life away...
 Bullets.
 In your heart, or near it --
 Nearer than this, as I lie,
 My head on your shoulder,
 Listening to the same heart,
 Beating strongly now...
 Why did I say nothing, then?
 If you'd died,
 You'd have taken me with you...
 You know me.
 Tough, rough, bluff exterior,
 Pumping iron, pounding the bag,
 Then taking in the kitten,
 That little white stray;
 Sentimental, you said, smiling.
 You weren't there the night
 He got run over.
 Would you have laughed?
 Rough, tough Bodie,
 Picking up that scrap of white fur
 And weeping more for the
 Murdered innocence of it
 Than I could ever weep for people...
 No, you would have understood.
 I *know* you,
 You have two faces too:
 The one you show the world,
 And your own, the one you hide --
 The one you show to me.
 You've never said a lot
 In all this time;
 You tell me more
 With a look, a gesture;
 Sometimes your kiss says things
 I'd be afraid to hear spoken.
 Sometimes it frightens me to see you...
 Hurt, tired, cold.
 I want to pick you up, like the kitten --
 And I'm *wrong*:
 You're a man.
 I never forget that, no matter
 How much I've come to
 Love you, want you, Need you.
 And yet,
 Sometimes I look at you
 And wonder, yet again:
 How did I call myself your friend
 For all those years,
 And never see you as you are?
 Beautiful; gentle; vulnerable;
 Hiding your compassion
 Behind the toughness,
 Hiding your feelings
 Lest they betray you,
 Let others see who you are,
 What you are...
 Are we afraid of who we are?
 Most men go through life
 Afraid to cry --
 I did, for years,
 And then you taught me,
 And it hurt. God, how it hurt!
 It's like I told you, once:
 If you'd died,
 You'd have taken me with you
 Yet, still I held onto that
 Dogged silence. Stupidity!
 Waste of time, life. Love.
 You know,
 That old man who swiped me
 Off my bike --
 He did us both a favour...
 Here we are, it feels so good, so right,
 With your long legs curled with mine,
 Not so wanton, not so chaste,
 Familiar, affectionate,
 And when you look at me
 I see in those green eyes of yours
 The same depthless caring
 That I saw back there
 When you knelt in the road,
 My blood slick and warm on your hands,
 And begged me to *live*
 Without saying a word...
 How often you have murmured it since then?
 *I love you, Bodie.*
 You said it once, I think.
 I don't need the words, I suppose;
 I can do without the language
 So long as there's still the love.
 It's odd -- or maybe not:
 My women, I've loved and left,
 All my life, you know that!
 And then there's you...
 And you're not even a girl!
 You're *more* than that, not less.
 No, I don't love you
 Because you're a *man*,
 But because you're *you*.
 God knows, I don't fancy Murphy,
 And he's a good looking lad!
 It's just you, just me, just us,
 We're what make it happen,
 And it's magic.
 Two years, Ray --
 Two years, to the day:
 It's Christmas Eve again.
 I've a scar to show for it,
 And a new bike,
 And an old, enduring ache
 Just under the heart,
 The ache you put there,
 The pleasure-pain I don't ever
 Want to lose.
 You look up at me now, and smile,
 Your head pillowed on green brocade,
 Your couch; the firelight
 Touching your skin with gold,
 Making your hair red,
 While the old song plays on the hi-fi again,
 Putting words to what I feel.
 Two years? We've hardly begun, have we?
 And I should thank the singer
 For his words
 If he'll lend them to me, this once:
 *Come, let me love you,
 Come, love me again.*

-- THE END --

 *Originally published in *In the Public Interest*, Sunshine Press, 1985*

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