Michael Burton

On the Third Thursday of Every Month

Me and every man to ever have fallen in love with you
meet to discuss how we are coping with our rejection.

For some it has been years. Many, now happily married,
talk only of flashes in their wingmirrors or windows.

For others their visions are a much more regular occurrence.
Some of the group claim they only know they are truly alone

once all the lights in their houses are out. One man confesses he
carries your hair clip in his pocket, squeezing it tight as he walks.

Another describes a recurring dream where you and him in full
embrace fall from a cliff face to a city of red and amber lights.

There is even a man you have never met who attends, dressed each
time in the same misfitting raincoat, his fists pressed against his

scalp as he speaks of you standing in the crowd, of running through
town, up long narrow streets, only to lose sight of you right at the last.

And then there is me and the curve of men beside me in the circle who
sit and listen, sit and listen, red faced, dazed in a frown, as so often

you said was the problem. So often, you said, the worst of all our problems.

Michael Burton is from East Lancashire and his poems have been published most recently in The Honest Ulsterman, Pennine Platform, The Lake and Ink Sweat & Tears. He also writes and performs as NotAnotherPoet and is one half of the band New Age of Decay.