Let It Be

One day,

he might be driving you

down some country road,

the kids in the back

joking and screaming,

and you

sitting silently

by his side.

But what if you looked

in the overhead mirror

at their two faces

and saw my eyes

in their skulls,

my hair on their heads,

my smile on their lips?

What if

you were living an illusion,

quite happy in it,

forcibly restrained in

some false self-belief

in an entirely negative

situation?

And what if I

were long gone,

with only the memory

of a slip of a girl,

such spritely wit,

writ with such self-defeat;

such a turn of phrase,

such a jagged grace?

I would not put you in a paddock

or bind you in the dock:

I’d only remember the girl

with the flame in her heart,

the fierce flame of life –

not just the fierce flame of art.

If you were to turn to me

and smile, put your hand in mine,

the breeze would guide us,

the sun would shine a path;

our hearts would be the rhythm

to which our lives played out.

So let me festoon you

with the merits you deserve;

let me be the man

moulded by the woman,

at your side; let me be

the one to let the horses out,

free, never to corral them again,

but see them dance at sundown

atop a meadowed hill,

as the sun carves their silhouettes

in the dust-excited air,

knowing they’ll find their way back home;
knowing they never had a choice.