– 40 –

Head to head

On the day she hovered in the lounge,
still wet in her classical French raincoat

and asked Are you a virgin?

I sat cross-legged on the floor,
homework abandoned.

∗

I fly home at Easter, she makes coffee.

We walk around the garden, finger lancewoods,
wonder what the weather is brewing.

When we reach the gash where my tree,
lithe, silvery limbed, should be

she says It needed to come down,
we had the professionals in.