“Another Life”

A family photograph
on a table
by a television
four people:

of whom I recognise three
myself : the architect
and two children
but that woman who stands next to me

smiling, it could have been
her whose name I dare not speak
or her who I have forgotten
from a drunken night

when I was someone else
if you hadn’t accepted me
1.43 am on a Sunday

One of whom myself,
the one for who I take
full responsibility
I could have saved you

from all these things
if I hadn’t been
so selfish, and instead
asked you please. Don’t marry me.

So in another life
we never met
and the face in the photograph
was that of someone you never met

So in another life,
on August 21st, instead of being with you
I was swimming and there was a baby crying on a beach
and a love dying at sea.

27-11-99

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© copyright Mark Reed, 1991-2002 except where indicated