I Will Gabble

No matter my dream of you will not –
you rang, out of the blue I was tumbling about
moiling as usual the phone stopped me in my tracks
I had long since stopped believing in a world
that could take my breath away but there you were
phoning and asking to meet me for lunch,
such a small thing, for me, a miracle, asking to meet
me, still shaking from the shock of seeing you
in the street after one of our eight-year intervals
the lop-sided smile, the mystifying eyes, the bulk
of you just one big question-mark I wanted to file away
under ‘to cry about’ and then you rang, caught me
on the turn in the stair, dogged in my belief in an earth
bent on its predictable axis, I in my runnel, pecking
and scratching for ever and instead I was picking up
the phone and there you were my heart ripped
from its coat of mail and tap-dancing all over my chest
and no matter I will gabble and you will look at me as
at something you couldn’t make up and no matter
my dream of you will never – you rang.

Mary Noonan
“I Will Gabble” first appeared in The
Dark Horse 23, Summer 2009.