did my first love live
the road was unpaved
two brown kelpies paroled
scooting their vigilant duty
we had coffee before school
that was all I needed then
now I hear she has died
like the phone calls I’d make
and hang up before answered
still I think of the life
we may have had together
a tumbledown waterfall
where what never happened
hauls the taut hopeful line in
a skirmish of unreconciled chance
bidding against the best years
in scratching into the scruff
behind those wondering alert ears
opaque as closed delicate eyelids
when you walk by into the future
First published in Poetry d’Amour 2017 Love Poems selected by Kevin Gillam
Unstill Mosaics – The Book of Love, Loss, and Longing, Busybird 2019
James Walton Poetry 