VERONA

It was your day off when I came into the world.

Until then you had no interest in dried leaves,

or how a woman might use her hand as a scale

to pour raisins into a bowl or how water moves to the sea.

What use was there in something so vast,

something you had not seen with your own eyes?

In any case you were never one for fishing,

for waiting for life at the end of a line.

After the nightshift you would park the Mazda 

on the drive, rest the paper on the steering wheel,

pen in one hand, beef sandwich in another.

Seventeen across—nut roast cooked for high fliers (10).

You would wait for the street sweeper to appear in your wing mirror.

Listening to his broom comb the pavement as you held your sandwich

like fruit flicking the radio to 99.8.

Twelve down—Girl carries on in Juliet’s place (6).

I don’t have this scene on tape but I know that I was six weeks late

and that the 12-inch cigar in your glove compartment was for me.

Mama would never let you smoke in the car. The weather report

you say was interrupted by a jackknifed lorry on the M6.

No casualties except the driver the only other person

you knew who had broken his collar bone in three places.

Hence the basketball in the back seat 

and mood swings that have no language.

Don’t be afraid remember your wings—Seventeen down

(10) Astronaut. And the name you gave me—Twelve down—Verona.

The sun hung suspended between two houses when your heartbeat

slowed and I became something new you could catch in both hands.