Paperback Writer

I used to know Paperback Writer,
before the horseman pulled the carriage
down a road I could not follow.

On paper, her people had reasons,
beginnings, endings, names..
But she was footnotes beneath footnotes,
ink sinking through the page,
a plot no hand could hold open.

We laughed until the games lost their rules,
played cards badly past midnight,
raised cheap glasses to nothing at all,
made kingdoms of the kitchen table.

Some odd branch had held our names
close enough to pass for kin;
some family likeness flickered
when we threw back our heads.

I thought those nights belonged to both of us.
I thought the love that comes before choosing
had made a home in two hearts,
Only the feeling travelled,
like letters sent without return.

Now, when I say I knew her,
I mean I knew the sound of her joy.
The rest was deeper than her novels
and closed before I learned to read.

We do not know each other now
But wherever the carriage carried her,
I hope there is laughter at her table,
a game whose rules are worth forgetting,
a glass raised for no reason at all.