For Steve Cole

5 April 2026

You found me in the slush pile one hundred years ago
Three pages of a letter: four thousand words must go –
I danced all over Wolvercote, I frolicked by the lake
You’d found me in the slushy pile. I’d won, for heaven’s sake

I rushed to teil my Tutor. She frowned and said, ‘Look here
‘Four thousand’s ever such a lot! Why don’t you say NO FEAR?’
‘Because he’s right,’ I said, ‘What’s more, his name is Steve, and so
‘I’m off to find my Editor, and with him I shall go.’

I’m thirty years his senior, almost his maiden aunt
He’s always fresh and vigorous, from leap to dance and chant.
Three books together then a fourth, for me the end was nigh
I’d grown from childhood to old in one regret-filled sigh.

I knew our days were numbered, that I should stand alone
And Steve’s fantastic universe must come before my own
But then, he gave me confidence. He’d shown me, sink or swim,
That our two worlds might stand apart but both of us could win.

For the Editor who first spotted me and kick-started
my career as an author, gratitude and love always