Now You Are Fifty

You asked me to write you a poem
For your fifitieth birthday
I said, I'm not sure I can give you one,
Not like your nut cake at Christmas
Full of teeth cracking goodness,
Not one that'll rise up like your
Toad-in-the-hole with onion gravy,
Not one that will do you fifty years of justice.
So I just thought I would draw your head instead
Side on, while you watched the television
But you can't sit still, not when Arsenal is scoring.
Do you think we we may have met as children?
At Climping on the beach playing French cricket
We certainly made love somewhere, everywhere
along the shore line, waves lapping
I'm remembering back twenty-two years,
Talking all night, then you let in fourteen goals
after a session on those creative drugs,
Sniffing the bottle and straw at the pub,
Then last night I made a joke on paper
And read it to you.
We were made for each other -
He's no good and nor am I,
to which you questioned, who is 'he'
as if 'he' was a perfect stranger,
It's surprising what a husband doesn't know at fifty
Sharing in that large slice of apple pie laughter.