dear john letters
we wrote our dear john letters in the same pen
and before the ink was dry they were already stamped and sent
yours to west berlin and mine to kent
and they sat side by side until they went
your sunday school script was packed in tight
careful and considered in the faltering bathroom light
mine in the spidery hand in which i still write
i thought of every line as a fuse ready to light
they came back broken they came back bent
and expected us to be what they thought they’d left
and though we weren’t quite whole
turned out we were all
each other needed to grow old
the tick skin on my back grew hard to cut
i’m sure the words were sharp but they never stuck
we sat back pretty easy and we watched the decades bend
home, bus stop, shop, bus stop and home again
they came back broken they came back bent
and expected us to be what they thought they’d left
and though we weren’t quite whole
turned out we were all
each other needed to grow old
now my stiff limbs jerk across the station concourse
like a wind up toy forced to walk
and you’ve been dead six years now but sometimes it feels like more
and i am old, i am old
you’ve been dead six years now but sometimes it feels like more
and i am old, i am old
