Each branch a promise

Rob plants the cherry tree -

He digs with a shining spade -

Each branch a promise -

A sweetness waiting for my tongue -

East Stoke 

March 2026 

Top boy

Rob still has the swagger of a top boy -

That bounce in his walk -

The brilliant mischief of his eye -

East Stoke 

March 2026 

Morse

Morse is listening to opera -

It's midnight in Oxford - 

There's been a murder -

It's raining -

Morse hides his heart -

Drinks another whisky -

Turns up the aria - 

Closes his eyes -

Murmurs bravissima -

Bravissima -

March 2026

After The Secret Agent

After The Secret Agent I dreamed of sicarios -

A sweltering city -

A police chief with blood on his carnival shirt -

Wareham 

March 2026 

The clarinet's spell

Rob wears a blue shirt patterned with white leaves -

I'm drinking Moretti -

The quartet is playing Duke Ellington's Caravan -

I'm beguiled -

Under a vast desert sky -

Lost in the clarinet's spell - 

Thinking of you -

Swanage

March 2026 

Annie was becoming smoke

Annie was becoming smoke -

More and more of her blown over the edge of the world - 

Just her voice left -

Then the brightness of her eyes -

Swanage 

March 2026

The shape of her slender bones

The women read their poems -

Afterwards, Fiona opened her arms for me to hug her -

I felt the sly promise of her body -

The shape of her slender bones -

The Mowlem, Swanage 

March 2026