A whistle starts me humming
to the tune of your bounce,
keeping down the racket
after playing tennis
in my skimpy white skirt.
I’m toasted to the knees
in popcorn, before wrapping
a package for Thailand, one
going to Norway, another
done up for Southern Rhodesia,
where a piano teacher lingers
over middle ‘C’ recalling me—
the two of us in West Berlin
ice skating in gloomy winter,
a lemon dotted dress
her mother’s sewn design
flattering her shape,
rebounding off my dreary hair
and the formless brown coat
I didn’t like but couldn’t leave,
like an old habitual marriage.
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