Girl With One Track Mind (Sexhunters)
I Fell in Love on the Northern Line
Song by George Szirtes
For Linda Grant
The floor just goes, and the floor just went:
No standing room in your own dumb head
And though the room's well lit, the rent
Is deeper than you can see to tread,
The rent is deeper, the hole too wide
To make it over the other side.
So floors just go and down you come
And fall is further than you thought,
Some depths there are you cannot plumb
Dread heights from which you won't be caught.
You won't be caught in the silky light
That might have tempted you to flight.
The heart gives out and all it gives
Is vacant air up an empty sleeve;
The darling one, the one who lives,
Is darling fit enough to grieve.
You're fit to grieve if your heart is strong,
But who can tell where such hearts belong?
Life's not for me, whatever else
Remains on offer we shall see.
Once there is neither voice nor pulse
The heart floats off like hearts set free.
The life looks on as the life is spent.
The floor just goes and the floor just went.
Posted: December 2006.
Copyright: George Szirtes.