After all these years – not a single
day had passed without her thinking
of  that day, in May;
he would never return.

He was taken away,
in his dry-cleaned suit,
with his checked necktie,
a present of his wedding day.

She thought of his raincoat
and the colour of his shy eyes
and the smell of his dry skin after shaving
and the smell of his naked skin before shaving.

He would never return,
that day, in May.

Jos Paardekooper