A lady’s light effluvium, coloring
the afternoon with pink disappointment.
Paradox sat by itself, quoting
from the service for the patriotic dead.
Rakes scratched the limits of the
imperial gardens, lunchtime lit by
bonfires. A grand old bull rose
to display himself, glorious sunshine
painting each passing cloud. Camellias
on parade, the bull to pasture.
No clothes showed the shed choice, and
shone through the hatch the old guard
looked in at, thinking to himself the
nil and void, the opposite of absolution.
A wasp-waist ninnied in a parasol’s cower,
the watch just beginning. A clustered bedlam
sucking doctored mints, stagedoor consort
tugging each umbrella, tucking kilt
and settling sideways on his guardian’s
hassock, intense within his whiskers’ range.
Sparrow in, down this narrow lane,
chosen at random by an angel
half-guardian, half-flaneur.
The plain-surrounded city fits
well within the watcher’s telescope,
scanning to where the clouds stall out
to tower into billowing white, offering
the sun something to hide behind.
Sparrow back, to find one detail
out of place, the reason to cry ‘fin!’