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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Ann Dancy

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Waterloo Road

The chaise longue wears a sheet for months
then we lever it in the skip, making space
for aircraft seats, a snip at five pounds a dozen.
The bed, another bargain, no mistake
steel framed, ex-army, mattress like an ironed wafer.
We pile pillows up to see the long run
of Waterloo Road, all those straight trees.
Like Paris, he tells me, only cheaper.

I want to read Intimacy. He interrupts;
Listen, flapping Genet’s journals,
doing the Marlene Dietrich growl. Listen.
Lend me the book, I think, but remember
last time. My mother was wild. Our Lady
of the Flowers. The sacrilege.
She wouldn’t stop till the pages flew,
the cover reached the door ahead of me
He’s made a whore of you, shouted up the street.

Now I recognise my own cologne. He smiles,
Just a splash, to show you how you smell.
Yes. Like a Queen of Hearts T-shirt
for my birthday, bought in his own size.
You get five more minutes of this lamp.
Even reading costs, I mimic him.
You’re learning, he says
and takes my watch to mark his page.

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