Philip Burton
A Margate Marriage
Day is done on the Front.
The slim back-street unpacked
from ram-jam loops of daytime cars.
Rita bears the brunt
of punters’ leery barmaid crack
in The Public Bar. Her Stars
always promised a gangling lover
bearing down: police undercover?
Pierce Brosnan? Freelance darts pro.,
muscles a-go-go, fertile as vitro?
She’d never expected Ron.
Wedding bells tomorrow.
She trembles. He comes:
an asthmatic son of Man,
trash-man, hair limp, dangling,
waddling wobbly tums,
cuddling a Heineken can,
probing a Doritos bag, ambling.
But he has the glow
of the very nearly married,
the straightening back,
the startling trouser crease,
the wide wild grin learning
the disciplined kiss of duty.
Page(s) 12
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- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- Modern Poetry in Translation
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- North, The
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- Staple
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- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
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- Weyfarers
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- Yellow Crane, The