The Sting in the Tail

Wearing loose clothes, light cottons,

You sit and fan yourself with a newspaper

Supplement, a glass of tepid

Fennel-flavoured sherbet by your side.

From the window you see

A car turn, a bus pass, or a cyclist,

A towel wrapped around his head.

It’s 45 degrees centigrade

In the shade, and according to the forecast

There’s worse to come.

A neighbour’s genset

Sputters in the background.

At night, still without electricity,

In the sooty warm light of a kerosene lamp,

You read John Ashbery and thwack! That

Was a fat mosquito

Leaving your forearm.