Hanging around

It took a while to find the right spot but your hooks are back up on the wall. They're the first things I see as I open the front door. Not in a cupboard this time but on full display. Not in the background but in the foreground where they belong - where you belonged.

It's not long since you last put them back up in my old house. They'd been in the cellar since I moved there, hidden from view though I had carried them with me through four house moves.

I tried to remember when you put them up the first time, the time when I didn't see what was in front of me, when we were just two people who hung around with Ed, whose paths crossed occasionally in pubs and kitchens. I asked my ex-partner if he remembered them and he did. He took them down when we moved fifteen years ago and told me how the then purchasers had asked if I would sell them. 'You wouldn't hear of it,' he said. It pleased me to learn this. I knew those hooks were important.

We used to talk about it sometimes. You would shake your head in disbelief at the chance we missed all those years ago. 'What was I thinking?' you would say. As you put the hooks back up, you shook your head again. 'I can't believe I gave them to you for free,' you said. 'I must have really liked you.'

I really liked you too, Blacksmith.
I really liked you too.