Tiumpian Head

by Donald S Murray

Even in sunlight, it reminded him of a pearl
necklace circling neck and throat of that girl
he’d waltzed with all those years before
inside Laxdale Hall. Impossible to ignore
or forget the way she looked at that dance,
for she had hypnotised him – each glimpse and glance
cast towards him spinning his head round and round
till all else was a blur to him, even the music’s beat and sound.

And she is still with him today – a beam
upon a dark horizon, a distant gleam
in his lonely life. There are nights when in distress
he stretches out for her, longing for the caress
of that light to scratch out a track
that will take him where he came from,
find some direction back.