Go Between (another draft)

I met one of your teachers
just the other day -

the one with the name like gosling -
soft feathers of baby birds -

corsage worn by bride or girl -
Mr Gossage – showed me to the room

where we were taught -
asked me how our mother was -

said he’d kept
the paper that you wrote

for years and years until
just recently -

perhaps it fell apart.

He’d always thought you’d
work in Academia – so I told him -

about your education,
your Oxford Don and

Doctorate winning thesis
something to do with

literary criticism
and Walter de la Mare.

You should know -

they hold your face,
somewhere safe in slanting boards:

a young man -
with a pipe,

a jacket patched with corduroy.

Mr Gosage said
he’d never known such a writer -

fifteen years – and already a rival.
Tell me about it - I said.

I told him that
you’d never smoked.