Lucky you didn't raise the nose with the young miss, Max. I would think she would feel accosted all right. 'Shaken or scorned' I thought you might have been parodying 007.
I didn't realise you could grow out of polio so untraceably as your account suggests. From what ailment did she die, Colleen? 'Faced' might suggest cancer? Do you mean, in the final line that she achieved something other than death? Or in death? I'd want to know more about what ennobled her, besides her nose. What I like is the way the present observation takes you back, so specifically and admiringly, if not longingly?
And I now know that tweaking trumps romping.
Cheers,
Bill
On 18/07/2012, at 5:54 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Colleen's Nose
>
> Colleen Trahair!
> I'd know that nose anywhere! -
>
> a finer version
> of her father's Roman one.
>
> But Colleen's been dead
> oh, many years
>
> and the rest of this face
> I'm covertly studying
>
> at the next cafe table
> is not like Colleen,
>
> merely a young woman
> I won't get to speak to,
>
> not being in the habit
> of accosting strangers,
>
> however appealing,
> with 'Haven't we met
>
> before? don't we know
> each other? I'm Max -
>
> you areā¦?'
> proffering a hand
>
> to be shaken or more
> likely scorned.
>
> *
>
> First memories
> are of a girl running
>
> after my sister,
> across the school yard -
>
> quick despite your leg
> in iron, polio child.
>
> After the iron went,
> you scarcely limped,
>
> grew tall and straight
> and - that fine nose,
>
> a nose to be lived up to.
> Suddenly, Colleen,
>
> you're adult, lodger
> at my mother's place.
>
> I'm two suburbs away,
> in a student share-house,
>
> you're a city secretary.
> We're almost friends...
>
> *
>
> romping one day on
> a sofa; my hand comes to rest
>
> on your cardigan's left breast.
> Paused, we smile surprised
>
> into each other's eyes,
> stilled - no, not your game.
>
> It was my nose got tweaked.
> Soon you married,
>
> news of you came from time
> to time from my mother.
>
> The life you wanted -
> husband, house,
>
> proud parenthood -
> nobly lived, I suppose,
>
> because of your fine nose;
> your dying, faced, achieved.
>
>
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