I gatecrashed a party to which I wasnt invited
An honorary five year old let in by giggling grown-up six year olds
Excited, begging occasional relatives to let me stay
Mothers beamed approval for a man to be alone in female company;
You werent so sure as you watched your mother going
Then, forgetting in an instant attached yourself to a giggle of friends

I faded into the background as the party took hold
Watching children trying to be impossibly statuesque or,
Last to sit down, out at the back and bored.
In one such whirl of metre-high party-dressed energy
You suddenly disappeared, red-rimmed eyes not hidden

Hunched in your so-short white dress, long legs
Even then like anacondas in pink sssilk
Knickers moulded immodestly as only little girls know how
Alone, a wayward sapling above the tree line
I sat by you and your head took root on my shoulder

Twenty years younger than all your sisters, playing alone
Talking only to the inhabitants of the dolls house
Parents politely pretending to understand but never hearing
Ushering you out to chase squirrels in a shared garden
I listened like a lamp to the worried wingbeats of my glorious moth

We attract, fleetingly, other taffetad moths but they soon go
Lured by brighter lights of sweets, prizes and glory.
Talking so much, we have to remind ourselves of imminent food
And, suddenly happier, you scuttle away
Disguising yourself in mountains of cake and lemonade

Since then we have been like some ill-matched twins
I twice your height, five times your age, inseparable
Whenever we can be, for when your storm stopped we found stars
Dancing in the air around our heads and in the stillness, followed them
Not understanding what they meant but knowing why they shine