while rummaging in my
dressing table top drawer
for my mother’s blue-grey
long drop earrings
i found you
framed in gold
at thirty one
looking so damn handsome
one of your father’s better
photographic efforts
he captured that hungry look
in your hazel eyes
that melted mine
on our first meeting
your black hair curled slightly
clinging closely
where your shirt collar caressed
the nape of the neck i kissed
the neck and lips
i couldn’t resist
you were wearing the sweater
i knitted for you
every stitch worked lovingly
on steel needles
in four ply
patterned in complex cable
in shades of Cumbrian forest
fine pine trees
foreboding and dark
and how I pined for you
all those long months and nights
that distance kept us apart
when only the phone
reached home