The Moment that Got Away

I might have been on the other side of the street that day
where he was. It didn’t matter that he was elderly.
He stood out, so well groomed, attired so elegantly.
I recognised him instantly, and I wanted to rush up to him and say,
You have always been my ideal hero, the epitome of decency.
Utter my name just once and I will live forever in that memory.

I looked the part that day, the leading lady, in a green dress of silky
Toulouse Lautrec theatrical images. Flame hair. Skin milky.
Twenty-two and pretty. We might have lingered a while in a cafe.
I might have been able to tell you I met him once. That he was lovely,
just as I’d expected. Only, in those few seconds of hesitancy
the moment passes, and a lifetime slips away. But maybe
it was just as well. Perhaps I can be forgiven.
I was just an ordinary girl. And he was David Niven.