Three Poems

Moment

I dreamed you were wearing white underclothes,
rather oldfashioned, lightly starched, heartbreaking.
You were sitting or lying on your bed, which stood
in a pleasant grassy space by a wooden gate,
which a lamb was trying to wriggle under. I said
I wanted us to be friends. Good friends. And lovers.
Lovers? you asked. Now? And you took off
your oldfashioned, lightly starched, heartbreaking underwear.
I took off whatever I was wearing, and held you,
and you pulled away and said, No, no. With a gulp.
No? I asked. No. We’ve tried it before.
And shall we not again then? And the hope
was too slender and sharp to wait for an answer.



Laudator temporis acti

When I was young I knitted
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