Grandmother’s secret intrigued them,
but nobody sought to enquire.
Why pry? Why intrude?
It would only seem rude
She’d deny it, with eyes that flashed fire.


It would just spoil the fun she was having,
to ask why she seemed to walk taller?
So, nobody questioned the unspoken truth
about Grandmother’s Gentleman Caller.


No-one had met him, not even a glimpse,
save the occasional letter.
Swiftly snatched up and hidden away,
No-one asked, for they all knew her better.


Many days she would smile -
with a skip in her step.
She would dance to a tune in her head
But soon it would fade and -
A shadow would fall.
She often retired to her bed.


More than once she slipped off, for over a day,
with a wry little smile on her mouth.
When pressed she would say ‘It’s not your affair -
I have most urgent business down south.’


Then, on the train, she met an old friend
as she pressed a glass heart to her lips
When asked, she replied (with that look in her eye)
‘I’ve a specialist checking my hips’.


But no-one enquired, nobody pried
Just pleased at the spirit she showed.
She’d return looking great -
With a blush on her cheek,
And something inside her which glowed.


Then came the day when she snapped ‘Go away!’
as they asked for the cause of her crying?
‘But we’ll buy you another one, bigger and better -
It’s only a cyclamen dying!’

The letters stopped coming the following spring
She retired to her bed for six weeks -
And, never again, did anyone see
that sly smile and the blush on her cheeks.

____________________

They were found in a book,
in a box,
in a drawer,
with a necklace…and rosy glass heart.
Two sonnets (quite sweet)
A Ghazal (not too bad)
but, mostly, ‘free verse’ at the start.

Some were funny, some sad
Some were really quite bad
Some showed talent - well, after a fashion.
But, all of them pointed to some hidden life -
And a secret of unfulfilled passion.

He wasn’t ‘that bad’, they smiled at the thought,
This must be the gentleman caller.
A man whose fine words
Could charm down the birds
And make grandma look two inches taller.
______________


As they sorted her things,
The butterfly wings,
The earings and stones from Tiree,
Unspoken, they knew,
what they all had to do.
Not one of them didn’t agree.

So, the poems went with her
to, wherever folks go -
when they aren’t around here anymore?
United by fire -
And an undying love,
The words that made both their hearts soar.



As those words turned to ash
and the memories too,
the stories grew smaller and smaller.
But they all made sure
Grandpa never heard -
about Grandmother’s Gentleman Caller.


____________________

Jx