On this auspicious date in July:

Richard the Lionheart was crowned; Thomas Cook

ran his first railway excursion, Leicester

to Peterborough and back; Thomas More

was beheaded; Horlicks went on sale; Newton

published his ‘Principia’; John Lennon

met Paul McCartney; Pasteur cured rabies;

the first full length talkie was premiered…

From that date in ‘61 – a blind date

(you with the black spot  to avenge a friend

and, after, changing your mind and your heart,

and me, innocently of course, longing

for sex and romance) – justice, being blind,

has sentenced us to our just deserts,

locked us up in half a century of love

with all its longing, its hurt, and its joy.