The houses were made of old timber, like a Russian village
on the endless steppe - maybe I had Dr Zhivago on my mind.
But where was Lara? I was in Russia, once thought it sinister,
roads without light and black limousines gliding slowly by.
Lived in a house that had rough planks for floors and no
indoor loo, luckily it was summer that year.
At a café, the woman who ran it looked as a woman I loved,
and never lost my longing for. I visited the place, there were
accordion music and much gaiety, but the woman I loved
looked at me with dislike when prancing around with her two
lovers who were junior officers in the red army and went to
the gym every day lifting dumbbells; impotent rage, thought
of assassinating them. She, the woman I loved, had not aged
I was now forty years older than her.
When the music stopped she dismissed her lovers I asked her
why she had left, she said it was because I was boring and had
no sense of fun. When the music began, to prove her wrong,
I danced to show her how much fun I was capable of, but I fell
on the floor and for once people laughed.
Knew I had failed her and could not understand what more
I could do to make her love me. But I had been blind, outside
a woman smiled, a warm African smile, it took me forty years
before I met her again and mourn the lost years without her.
