In Truth, You’re Still in Love (with Addie Smith)
out in paperback from all good bookshops on January 14th 2010 – a not your average type book
Not the kind of girl you’d fight for
the kind you’d end up getting into a fight over.
There’s a photo of her age six crying with an ice cream.
Seven years later it’s fingers up outside the Wimpy
with a boy, with a bike, with a tattoo, at twenty outside
the art school that turned her down, I can’t say why
how or even if
you’d never thrown a punch or taken one,
I’d wage you would if you went out with Addie Smith
She walks with all her five and nine
ankle and thigh, chin, neck and hair
and all that’s in between and every part of her
playing catch up, trying to over take
or out do every other part. And as she passes
you wouldn’t, couldn’t not notice
and even if
you’re not the type to double take
you’d find you’d turned and heard yourself say “that must be Addie Smith”
Wise as moss, happy as heather
clever as a pencil and ready as leather,
she fucks like a trucker and smiles like the queen
smells like a Sunday and drinks gasoline.
She carries the past on the souls of her shoes
and drives as fast as this morning’s news
what you just thought of, she thought of last week it’s
almost as if …
remember you’re weak
you’re still in love with Addie Smith
At thirty she decided to turn her back on everything
and you know that’s a hard thing to do
turn your back on everything on absolutely everything
I mean just spin yourself dizzy.
Well she turned her back on everything including you
(although you had your back turned too)
it wasn’t as if,
let’s face it
you were actually, practically, factually in love with Addie Smith
And the years trundle by as they do
and we hear a little less say a little less think a little less
a dumb numbness sets in that some call happiness others
idleness the rest forgetfulness and then in the middle of this
- this thickness – a spark that reminds us of what it was and is
the punch that brings you back
as if
in miracle or in myth …
the truth, you’re still in love with Addie Smith
© Jan Noble 2006
