Tate’s Avenue

Not the brown and fawn car rug, that first one Spread on sand by the sea but breathing land-breaths, Its vestal folds unfolded, its comfort zone Edged with a fringe of sepia-coloured wool tails. Not the one scraggy with crusts and eggshells And olive stones and cheese and salami rinds Laid out by the torrents of the Guadalquivir Where we got drunk before the corrida. Instead, again, it’s locked-park Sunday Belfast, A walled back yard, the dust-bins high and silent As a page is turned, a finger twirls warm hair And nothing gives on the rug or the ground beneath it. I lay at my length and felt the lumpy earth, Keen-sensed more than ever through discomfort, But never shifted off the plaid square once. When we moved I had your measure and you had mine.