Michael Curtis
Stanley Would Love Them
these untransfigured women
straight from a tame two-hander,
talking their way through his rooms
at steady, sibilant volume,
head-to-head between the sights
of tutting, squinting viewers.
Perhaps he’d robe them
with inner tubes, prising tyre skins
while a blunt ruler folds to a swastika?
Maybe he’d render them mute
under wingless visitations
in the speechless gardens of Cookham,
or inflate them to balloons of light,
with long arms obliged to imitate
the writhing necks of swans?
Or would he just dump them
to pay their homage to dustmen?
Or toast them on a delicious fire?
But I guess he’d give them
a cosy white sepulchre to share
in the churchyard’s favoured spot,
where they can loudly comb
each other’s colourfast hair,
then lever themselves from the tomb,
clamber on a loose headstone,
and, still chatting blithely, natter
their way up to resurrection
and a side door into heaven,
where their never-ending tit for tat
bothers God forever and ever amen.
straight from a tame two-hander,
talking their way through his rooms
at steady, sibilant volume,
head-to-head between the sights
of tutting, squinting viewers.
Perhaps he’d robe them
with inner tubes, prising tyre skins
while a blunt ruler folds to a swastika?
Maybe he’d render them mute
under wingless visitations
in the speechless gardens of Cookham,
or inflate them to balloons of light,
with long arms obliged to imitate
the writhing necks of swans?
Or would he just dump them
to pay their homage to dustmen?
Or toast them on a delicious fire?
But I guess he’d give them
a cosy white sepulchre to share
in the churchyard’s favoured spot,
where they can loudly comb
each other’s colourfast hair,
then lever themselves from the tomb,
clamber on a loose headstone,
and, still chatting blithely, natter
their way up to resurrection
and a side door into heaven,
where their never-ending tit for tat
bothers God forever and ever amen.
Page(s) 2
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