Elizabeth
After Anne Sexton
A similar age when we arrive,
I’m dusky pink, you’re Prussian
and Astrakhan, inexorable station
etiquette with northern decorum
for the offertory of the city,
with our hearts in our mouths,
outlines of dressmaker’s chalk
and urbane simplistic patterns,
iron ribs, porticoes, terminal
pigeons nesting in the rafters,
and were you scared Elizabeth?
Elizabeth – I was – hungover on
a vibe in a stinking phone box,
where Tanya gave more in Percy
Circus and an unmet glance at
a taxi rank, your oyster in your
hand slips you underground and
were we twenty or twenty- one?
What did it matter? We had gone.
