people say

you should never

go back to where

you were a child

and they are right

my home place

the streets

where we played footie

chased girls

to make them giggle

played ollies

in the gutters

have gone

they exist now

only in my head

people say

you can never love again

the rush

the passionate, forbidden kisses

the roll in the dunes

the fumbles in dark alley ways

they are right

the back aches

the lips now dry

but hang on now

necessity is the mother of invention

as my mother used to say

there is more than one way of skinning a cat

with that

our cat leaps off my knees

and looks at me

accusingly

suspiciously

for she knows me better

than I know me

true love

never dies