cold nights on the farm, a sock-shod

stove-warmed flatiron slid under

the covers, mornings a damascene-

sealed bizarrerie of fernwork

        decades ago now



waking in northwest London, tea

brought up steaming, a Peak Frean

biscuit alongside to be nibbled

as blue gas leaps up singing

        decades ago now



damp sheets in Dorset, fog-hung

habitat of bronchitis, of long

hot soaks in the bathtub, of nothing

quite drying out till next summer:

        delicious to think of



hassocks pulled in close, toasting-

forks held to coal-glow, strong-minded

small boys and big eager sheepdogs

muscling in on bookish profundities

        now quite forgotten



the farmhouse long sold, old friends

dead or lost track of, what's salvaged

is this vivid diminuendo, unfogged

by mere affect, the perishing residue

        of pure sensation