“There was a girl I used to go with, Long ago, when the skies were cooler, There was a tree we used to grow with Marking our heights with a stolen ruler.

There was a cave where we hid and fought once. There was a pool where the wind kept writing. There was a possum-child we caught once. Caged it awhile, for all its biting.

There was a gap in a fence to see there, Down where the sparrows were always wrangling. There was a girl who used to be there, Dark and thin, with her long braids dangling.

Dark and thin in her scuffed brown slippers With a boy’s sling stuck in her apron-pocket, With a sting in her tongue like a gallinipper’s And the eyes of a ghost in a silver locket.

White and gold, white and gold, You cannot be cold as she was cold, Cold of the air and the running stream And cold of the ice-tempered dream.