Across the ocean

You look me over from the pages. No, you stare to one side:
I am not of interest to you yet, have not reached your orbit.
I could conjure you to Manchester, I can see it, that way I do.
I could engineer us meeting, bring you to a festival, catch you.

Somewhere along the line I learnt to do that, found myself
on the phone to folk singers, hugging a tiny telly person,
and sometimes it was me who was magicked, inexplicably,
my need sensed by sandy-haired poets with cars and jeans.

I toiled to be like you, though, danced in and out of society,
the city my garden, mountains my muse, staying put, my fear,
and all I ever wanted. Women a brilliant, scary possibility.
I walked back to the university bookshop, into pure memory.

The ghosts made my head swim, but they had to have you in,
and I found you, in a red coat, and I took you home, to bed.
You told me what I had to hear from you, and hear now,
in my flat with pen and pad and guitar, the decade starting.