Awakening In Westbury Street

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Awakening In Westbury Street
having completed fifty-eight laps of the Sun and finding a Clive James poem on a table


where once were wood-sylphs, pixies, sprites and elves
women are angels now
slower, softer
coming in that hour before droll wakefulness intrudes

sepia, or warm as burnished oloroso by the fire
they coddle me and tell me of desire so demanding
that I wake here with a grin
double-handing

some call like wolverines across a decade
sometimes it’s forty years
from before the pantyhose came in and shut everything off
and Gossamer occupied the hair of the nurses

some smother me with breast flesh
and some are out of reach
some drink me in great surges
mighty breakers on the beach


Philip White











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