Imtiaz Dharker 'Alan or David or John'

I was leafing through a book of poems by Imtiaz Dharker this afternoon and found a lovely poem called 'Alan or David or John'. I can't find it online and it's too long for me to type out but it's wonderful in it's simplicity. It begins:

'You ask me how it all began. It began
with something unattainable. I fell in love
with an older man. He must have been
fourteen.'

And she tells how she fell in love with the boy who lived opposite her house when she was nine years old who's name might have been 'Alan or David or John'. She began writing notes and poems to him which he never saw and he never wrote back. His name might have been Colin or Donald or Sam. 

But someone started writing back to her, love letters in books she borrowed from the library

'... with their sonnets and their couplets
and their wee sleekit words,
Rabbie and Will and John.'

The love affair went on for years and continues today. The poem ends:

'You ask how it began.
It began, like everything, with love.
I wrote and they came, they answered on behalf
of the boy with no name,
Alan or David or John.'

To be a poet is a fine thing indeed.