It Started in the Winter

It started in the winter,
it ended in the fall.
We ruffled through Lolita,
and somehow you didn't see me at all.
But then I mumbled something
and you raised your eye.
A fiery little evening.
And then we said, "Goodbye."

We started in the winter,
and pushed on towards the fall.
Lay safe in ivory sheets and
sketched verses of Shakespeare on your bedroom wall.
But we were not like Shakespeare.
Ran out of things to say.
And like our penciled verses
began to fade away.

I won't hear when you say that this somehow can't work,
that we won't have the time,
that the distance between us is too much.

And I know the time at the palace, the time with the view,
my hand on your leg and your scuffed yellow shoe,
and we were just perfect, I know this is true --
but do I just know it,
just me and not you?

It started in the winter.
It ended in the fall.
Some markings on a calendar,
beginning and ending, I guess that's all.
Some things they last forever,
and some things, well, they don't.

It started in the winter.
But I still wonder --
do you still scoff at Ophelia?
What's he think of Humbert Humbert?

It started in the winter.
It ended in the fall.

- Jeremy Lloyd, from his original song cycle I GUESS I WISH.