Even though we often stay up late swapping each others poems

and talking about a shared love of Geoffrey Chaucer,

 I’m still too embarrassed to ask him how to pronounce his name

Last night he gave me a lighter and told me I could keep it

Standard looking with no distinguishing features

unlike the way he carries himself in his lime green coat

which seems to consume his whole body 

I was surprised when told me that the lighter he had given me

is a from a pair of a limited edition

Indeed, there was a minotaur beast hand painted on it.

With horns and wings no less

He took the lighter out of my hands and lit my cigarette

but it was me who was lit

 

He put his hands into one of his deep coat pockets,

and took out his lighter, the second in the pair. The missing partner

And we put the two lighters together

And the penny dropped

Lit but

Stitched

Sparks flew between us like stitches

like he had found  one my most treasured possessions

now even more so since her passing,  my Mum’s childhood sewing kit

Anne Styles’ thread and pins

In a single flick of the lighter, he started sewing me

back together again             

Heart surgery was taking place

 

At the end of the night,

he placed a one penny piece in my right hand

and told me to keep it safe as it would bring me luck

 

Whichever side the penny lands,

I was just enjoying smoking with him

 

Next day, I drunk  black coffee

and smoked a few roll ups

whilst sitting in the sun trap in my garden

for the  first time this year

I spent the rest of the day looking forward to

seeing him again on Monday with a

 warm afterglow in my belly of the midday sun

and the puff of each cigarette lit with his lighter

 

And for the first time in a very long time

I felt lucky, and lit

when I could hear Gil Scot Heron singing out of the cigarette ash:

 

 I know you've been hurt

By someone else

I can tell by the way

You carry yourself

… But if you'll let me

Here's what I'll do

I'll take care of you

I’ve loved and  I’ve lost

 

And at that moment I knew that pronunciation

wasn’t so important, for me, he was the surgeon.