When, you said, begin with When.

Always easiest are the whens

of me and someone else no longer around,

especially when the talking was with eyes

in a long ago of eyes and hands.

Hardest are the whens of now,

ageing voices, different rooms, towns elsewhere

Worst are desire's whens

of perhaps and almost certainly never.

Include an orange, you said, and write me thirteen lines.

So here's a lascivious thumb

squeezing fruit, and here's a bottle of gin

with no-one around to tell me when.