Terri Moore was a fairly well-known film star 'in my day'. Did she ever gaze at this photograph, in her later years, and sense the melancholy that made me write this poem?
POIGNANT POLKA
Did anyone see her leaving?
The girl in the polka-dot dress?
Seeing's believing
That's true, I guess.
Did anyone see her going?
I looked and she was gone.
And a cold wind was blowing
Where the sun once shone.
The face in the photograph
Looks a little bit like mine.
But there I can trace a laugh,
And, here, a line.
Did anyone see her leaving?
I only know she left.
There's just one word for my grieving...
Bereft.
Did anyone hear that laughter
That hung on the sunny air?
Nothing, coming after,
Could quite compare.
Did anyone see her moving,
The swirl of a passing skirt?
Memory is proving
That time can hurt.
The face that I now see
Is familiar, in a way
But there is the life to be,
And here's today.
Did anyone see her leaving?
I only know she left.
There's just one word for my grieving...
Bereft.
