Fifty Fifty

Will this be the bar in years to come that we know
as the one where you first leant and placed the gentlest
slow and courtly kiss on my mouth – no tongues.
Will it be the place we first held hands for all those hours –
at least three. Will it be - the place we didn’t like much
but sat in side by side, warming where our bodies touched.
The place where you kept on your coat and hat.
The place I first felt matched.

Or will it be vague in my mind – a bar where now I come to think of it
I had a kind of date that never came to much although I swear now
looking back, there was a kiss and someone maybe took my hand.

And will this be the street where we first walked
fingers linked in frozen air – my fingerprints aware
of every stitch in your knit gloves and where we both
ignored the homeless man when I got cash.
And will it be were you rushed past to check the score
and told me in your youth that you weren’t bad.

Or will it be the street right by my work I walk down every day,
get money out, go into bars, buy sandwiches or twist my route
through department stores to spray myself with scent.

I’ve no clue what these places will have meant,
if these first inklings of love will make the cut.