Girl

My heart was a-flutter, my breath shallow, short

My clay-covered hands trembled slight at the thought

Yet I knew I must do what I knew that I ought

For the girl close there at my side

My throat was bone-dry, my lips cracked and parched

Tight like a high collar, crisp, clean and starched

Poised like a cat’s back, tense and full-arched

For the girl close there at my side

Deep in my chest my heart beat like a hammer

Shouting loud in the silence, all of a clamour

I could find so few words, I was all of a stammer

With the girl close there at my side

Summoning up courage from an inner reserve

Though my voice lost all fervour, zeal, zest and nerve

My hand found that just as it had deserved

The girl close there at my side

And I smiled with a glow that started within

Spreading out like a sunbeam, wide like my grin

Knowing that here was the birth of new kin

With the girl close there at my side

A love that grew stronger with each passing day

Flowing into the years we have shared, come what may

Standing back now I smile, and love still I can say

The girl close there at my side

‘Most thirty-five years we’ve shared now, us two

Seen four lovely children as to adults they grew

And the love that I found still seems just as new

For the girl close there at my side

©Jemverse