At High Tea in the Rehab. Hospital,
Miss Paragreen, stone deaf, lets
forth a body noise like a starter's gun,
does not pause in spooning yellow jelly,
nor do the other three, but Mrs Clausing
and myself, dash into sentences loudly...
Saturday evening. Behind the servery counter,
above the chatter and clatter of crockery,
beyond the hearing of most silvery heads
a radio pops and crackles. Kindly nurses
shout; outside sun shadows the tee-tree fence
and clouds whiz inland, shapeless as these days.
Then through it all there is a tune, a "golden oldie"
which echoed down those Devon summer days
when I was obsessed, possessed by a postgrad girl:
bangled, long-skirted, she wore patouli oil,
her long hair was an auburn tent, her deep voice
played as plangent as a cello in my chest.
My bald-headed gallahadery made her smile...
Fifty now, if she's alive, and I'm among the wrinklies,
glad only that I am not next to Miss Paragreen.