The Classroom Smile 1962

In the classroom

you would turn around

and smile at me.

Your eyes smiled too

and an excitement

focused there.

I smiled in return,

the teacher's words

failing to connect,

others for that moment

seemed not to exist,

them you turned away

and the real seeped back,

the teacher's voice returned

the subject of maths,

and other students

became real once more.

I studied the way your hair

touched your shoulders

and I glimpses the outline

of your bra

through the cream blouse

you wore that day.

Sixty years

have come and gone

and you taken off

by cancer's hold,

but the imagery

of that time remains

clouded like a dream maybe,

but you still turn around

and smile at me.