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Aubade For once it was not the tiny bird screaming from its cage inside the alarm-clock but the sun bursting its yolk through the window that woke me up. Should I get out of bed & look for the cafetiere? Where are my glasses? Could I face breakfast? Outside a city is clanking in its chains: a rubbish-truck is shunting up the street like something mammalian & a reel of seagulls are scraping the bellies of clouds. A single pane of glass is the room’s flimsy membrane; it allows all kinds of breezes. Inside we are a pair of loofahs taking a bath in yellow. Something about the light dusting his chest-hair reminds me of Pieter Claesz — or do I mean Clara Peeters? In the window clouds are unstitching themselves & the day blows open like an empty net. Padraig Regan the poems 41
page 43
42 the poems The Courtesies What a night, and what a neighbourhood, to be out in – out and up to no good! Edge-of-town dinge and darkness, where an intermittent wind chafes leaves and litter into a listless skirmish of dancing and drives a shaft of ice straight to the bones of any creature wild enough to be chancing such a late hour. Here’s one: frail, farouche, dressed in a coat she hugs tight and too little underneath, pacing on tip-tappy heels between safety zones of lamplight, every halt and about-turn charged with a chemical mix of wariness and weariness. Here’s another: more shadowed, more in ambush, but just as strung, as he waits either to press his advantage or to retreat. It isn’t decided yet, and won’t be till certain signals are exchanged, courtesies so discreet — such a matter of fine negotiation between fearful and bold — it’s anyone’s guess whether these two night scavengers will gain the respite they long for from the persecuting cold. Christopher Reid

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42 the poems

The Courtesies

What a night, and what a neighbourhood, to be out in – out and up to no good! Edge-of-town dinge and darkness, where an intermittent wind chafes leaves and litter into a listless skirmish of dancing and drives a shaft of ice straight to the bones of any creature wild enough to be chancing such a late hour. Here’s one: frail, farouche, dressed in a coat she hugs tight and too little underneath, pacing on tip-tappy heels between safety zones of lamplight, every halt and about-turn charged with a chemical mix of wariness and weariness. Here’s another: more shadowed, more in ambush, but just as strung, as he waits either to press his advantage or to retreat. It isn’t decided yet, and won’t be till certain signals are exchanged, courtesies so discreet — such a matter of fine negotiation between fearful and bold — it’s anyone’s guess whether these two night scavengers will gain the respite they long for from the persecuting cold.

Christopher Reid

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