Fifty
I saw you sipping wine in your best clothes
On the terrace with the hundred year old men
Revelled in the thrill of your day spent in the sun
I thought about you every now and then
Instinctively you reached for words
Impulsively you you aped the past anew
Took refuge in the photographs
Took comfort where the young man laughs at the future
Living in the fake footlights
That ever shone for you
I heard you'd been successful with your plans
Turning new tricks with a certain savoir faire
Charming in the lies with a whiff of compromise
I even thought that you had something there
So confident you could not lose
You swaggered in your pointed shoes and danced,
Went closer to the edge each time
Looked down into the great decline
Diving at the sparkling lights
Till time came for you
And there the slow-burn took its leave
To mock our dreams and light the fuse of age.
And children came as we had come and worried less
As we had done
And all the while old scripts,
We faded from the page.
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