This appeared in Lyric.
About this town which I have never seen
I can say anything: unbound by fact,
I can make grass like fuchsias, daisies green
policemen decorous with grace and tact,
imbued by sun and suave citizenry
with politesse. Alsatians bow and smile,
the cottages all tactile bonhomie.
The pubs are warm. The postmen dress with style.
On Sunday morn the smallholders emerge
to sing like gleemen old-time rock ‘n’ roll,
their back doors left unlocked. A sudden urge
to love one’s wife is balsam for the soul,
the vicar says. All this, here far away,,
is slightly different. We speak in wrath
to those we trust; we greet the dawning day
with trepidation, far from Matlock Bath.
Perhaps a girl in Matlock Bath is thinking
that overseas young men appreciate
young ladies who do not want to go drinking
and be led home in a disheveled state.
Perhaps, she thinks, they do not have to study
away their May on Tudor crowns and math;
perhaps, she hopes, the world is not so bloody
awful, far away from Matlock Bath.
Perhaps. But I don’t know, and must not see,
the commons or the chemist there. I’m blessed
with wanting them to live life differently
than we do, not like us, like all the rest.
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