I am trying to piece together
this jigsaw of ours. To make
sense of it. Tessellate
the shapes of half a lifetime. Fit

moments of significance against
the everyday, you coping with this while
I was doing that. The corners, edges, are
the easiest - the frame of work, love, children -

the centre, most difficult to
assemble. Frills of surf sweeping
across the grey scribble of sea, stretching
to the faint blue stripe of the horizon,
parallel days separated by so few miles.

I am trying to complete the pattern, fill
the empty spaces, to understand the how of it. Then light catches
your discarded cigarette still smouldering, rinses
the smoky air. Suddenly, then is part of now.

And just for that moment the puzzle is complete.