Possible Love

Oldknow 29 Antony Oldknow Possible Love It is possible to love more than one person, possible it is more than one person to love, possible, possible, but then this crazy slope pulls us slippery down it, and you see their lips turn away, all that blackness, pelting, but no rain, wind but no words, garden gate swinging and slamming, and the bats like velvet silence skimming the skin. I remember the horses who could see no horses that could see them standing in blinkers patient with their oats in the milk carts those rose dawns when the lovers sneaked out down the stone steps waving to glass windows with a smudge behind them in the sunrise and as my papers thudded off the wood of the porch they had ducked away sliding among the parked cars down the avenues of elms malting and cats which scrabbled up bark and hissed. I loved the paper girl of the county paper who wheeled her bike around my deliveries and never noticed me, and I loved her blonde friend who waited at the corner in her school hat, loved the two silent sisters mousily going to mass when the hollow bell tolled its single calls. It is possible to love more than one person, possible that that person's love will not swirl around the head black as a felt bat, pull us slippery down, possible that her lips will not turn away in that blackness, love, possible it is more than one person to love like velvet silence skimming the skin. ...