Obverse Poem by Tony Jolley

Will I go singing: looking ahead?
Will I go mourning: looking back instead?

Looking back at the mays and the might have beens;
Looking back at lost days and the almost seens.
Wondering what poor proportion of potential
I realised within my span existential.


Where does it go: that famous: ‘what if? ’?
To some parallel universe at the end of a spliff,
Where some other me was never a poet
For the lack of a love if he did but know it?

Are there lives lived there the mirror-match to mine
Lying just the other side of the clock face of time,
Where my right is his left, his up my down,
His better side a smile to my frown?

Do I, then, ride his roads not taken,
Walk the miles he missed, take his turns forsaken?
Does he toss a coin to help him decide
And does it fall on my mistakes-down side?

I wonder if he wonders what it’s like to be me:
The antithetical obverse of all that is he....
Am I the living sum of his greatest regrets:
The thing above all he’d prefer to forget?