Looked For You In All The Places I Had Never Known You Poem by Dónall Dempsey

I looked for you
in all the places

I had never known
you.

Here your fingers
paused

poised

before rat-tat-tatting
the extravagantly large brass
door knocker

that held your face
smiling back at you

but curved
out of all recognition

sticking out your tongue
at you

and I too
only hours later

stood here
as unknown to you

(as you to me)

my face curved
laughing so

my hand poised
& paused so

little knowing
that my touch

would touch
your touch

separated by
the chance of coincidence


I too sticking out
my tongue at me

grinning curvedly
back at me!

Here in a coffee shop
we sat

back to
unknown
back.

I just finishing
the last dregs

(curving a finger around the edge
to lick the last of the cappuccino)

just as you begin to sip
that first cappuccino flecked sip.

Or here
in a crowded lift

I crushed at the back

as you
step gloriously in
only to step firstly out

at the fifth
as I continued on my lonely way

to the seventh and
final floor.