Poem: No Answers

A poem about when you are tenuously linked to someone and you see each other all the time — but have nothing to say. And so you don’t.

I can’t remember her name but at a guess
it’s Jen. I see her around the streets now
and then, some 25 years on from when,
briefly, we knew each other because she
was Richard’s Girlfriend – and I
was Richard’s Friend. Both roles we stepped
away from so long ago. But now we are
doomed to look at one another, avoid eye
contact and small talk, and each silently judge
the other other for ever being in his orbit. I want
to ask her if she’s okay. The life on her face
tells me it is all best forgotten. She might
want YOU to ask me the same thing
I could also ask her: What did you ever see in him?
I guess this is why we are best not speaking,
not even the little Fight Club nod.