POEM OF THE DAY

FOR the eve of St Valentine’s Day, a touching story of youthful romance in an unromantic setting.

Jim C Wilson of Gullane is the narrator remembering.

THE STUDENT FLAT

The electric fire’s one bar glowed dully, half-smothered, its dust skin of talc holding back the heat. In a far-distant corner the dark

morning was ruffled by the hoarse scrape of your tinny tranny; you’d painted its case with flowers. Should I wake you? Condensation dropped

down the black window glass, like cold tears. The thin curtains couldn’t meet, didn’t quite fit. You slept, the sheet wound round your strange nakedness.

Cars and buses edged into the dawn. I saw two sticky coffee mugs, some underclothes slumped on worn rugs.

An inch of cider still remained,

half-accusing. The staleness of the spreading ashtray clung to the dead air and my skin. Your single bed sank in the middle and I ached

for you in the pale fireglow in that old house full of strangers. I woke you for the new term; your sigh was a little girl’s. You blinked and

were surprised to see me that dawn in 1968 when rain made the roofs shine and I had lain beside you in a night as brief

as a smile. The room was filled for me with wonder as I am now when I think with surprise at how you were so prepared to allow

me to stay that first October night and then these fifty years.