Wide-eyed by Robert Nisbet

At sixteen, seventeen years of age,
she’d gaze wide-eyed (her hazel eyes
a vivid feature), as she listened
to utterance and argument.

She’d gaze thus
at teachers and captains urging her
to run and hurdle for the House;
at young-man English teachers who described
Elizabethan poetry’s coarse puns;
election candidates exhorting them
to honour and fulfill democracy;
even sometimes, at band members
as they talked of songwriting and messages.

So he, the young man, university
third-year, (she in her Freshers’ Week)?
He tells her of his poems and his visions,
that poetry is depth is suffering,
his need sometimes for solace and relief,
some physical expression of his poet’s heart.

She gazes wide-eyed, momentarily,
before the creasing of her lips and then
that glorious derisive grin. 

Robert Nisbet is a Welsh poet whose work is published widely in both Britain and the USA. In recent years he has been shortlisted for the Wordsworth Trust Prize in the UK and nominated for a Pushcart Prize in the US.