Peter Milner

Another somebody

The end of summer

a long inlet from the sea

a woman stops, hands on hips

to look at the river

low tide, stepping stones 

brown ruins in the trees 

She leads, we follow

we walk through woods

twisted limbs across the sky

and realise

We've been here before

when there was another

. . . years gone by

And I remembered this

the silent car

the jacket and the new tattoo

listening to his patter

the scattering of clues 

and furtive information like 

one and one makes two

. . . but sometimes three

He didn’t say he was leaving

or that he needed to be free

to put his old life behind him

like the ruins in the trees

where we stood like shadows 

while he turned his back

and stole away

putting distances between us 

to be somewhere else

with someone else

to be another somebody

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