At first meeting, was glad
to see she looked old.
I was wearing my red jacket
and I wasn’t fat then.
Hearing her talk, liked
her forthright politics,
imagined being friends.
But how, disappointed in life,
could she like me?
(And I warmed
to one she despised.)
That was 18 years ago.
Her youngest tells me now
she’s near her end.
My stepchildren’s mother.
My love’s first love.
This stranger.
[Poem #84]
This began as a game some bloggers played in 2008, to write about people who'd made an impact, in the same number of words as one's age, every day for a year. I did them less often and went on longer, adding one word each birthday. I stopped in 2016 and incorporated them into my main poetry blog. In 2019 I resumed the project and gave it its own blog again, with a new name, where it may unfold at its own (slow, intermittent) pace. I've labelled these verse portraits, but they're more like quick sketches: mere glimpses, impressions....