What a work memory is – fecund,
abeyant, arcane! How apparently
dormant, inconsequential images
awaken, seemingly unbidden!
I am fifteen, climbing the steep steps,
two at a time, from the Underground
to the street – on a sunlit, London
October morning. I look up. Beginning
to descend, carefully, from the gentle light,
is a young woman, heavily pregnant.
She has become a persistent stranger,
replete with promise – unrealised,
as yet and forever.
By David Selzer