Quietly, she spoke of tea, toast, the after smell of cigars,
Let us say we met in a room: curtained, peeling, private.
Briefly she consulted the winter afternoon,
Reviewed the deadening, leadening sky.

It was discreetly done.
No presences danced beyond no lifted curtains.
Darkness had silted us away.

Words, like s...

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Curlews cry, an Aegean sky: a boat
lifts and falls. The heat of noon, a lethargic
gloom, she's tracked with light this star-struck night.

Moon-shadows cast, it's cool at last, this sweep
and swell, this road to hell. The ship's becalmed
with false alarms, this attic night of bone-white light:
no palimpest, no Grecian zest.

A sapphic wind balloons the moon, fans the fog's
p...

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I used to carry three of the five up to bed

They’d say ‘Daddy, daddy, please stay’

But I would go away and work.

 

Suddenly we were semi-detached

They’d flown the nest, gone way,

And what I wouldn’t give

For one day with them

When they were little and I was young.

 

Telling them stories, singing songs,

Getting along.

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