Footprints
Dear A,
“Do you remember old John McLean?” you asked
“He died of an overdose this last week past”.
If I remember him, John McLean? Yes, I do see
Faint among fractured shadows of memory
The edges curled with whisky and cigarettes
Our midnight quests, sleaze and side-effects.
While we talked of escape, and sought new thrills
Beyond the tollgate and home’s confined hills
When you parked that night so determinedly
For pills in the nervous light of a pharmacy
Perhaps the adolescent talk was already dim
With destiny that even then struggled in him?
Like Eve’s fossil footprints pressed in the dune
On the mustard shores of Langebaan lagoon
Our choices leave trails and the faint remains
Of petrified memories in our time-hewn veins
So the blue-black susurrus of his dried blood
Are like Eve's footprints before the flood
Ending so sudden, abrupt, quite unforeseen.
But yes, yes, I do remember old John McLean.
Yours sincerely
M.
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