Disappointed that the place has given me nothing, even in its passing, to write a line about, I am gifted (along with the disappointment, which I do not waste) the window of the waiting-room that commemorates – 1895–1980 – Maurice Grevisse, the great French grammarian; or rather, to disambiguate, the great Belgian grammarian of French, here in his home town called ‘Monsieur Bon Usage’, Marbehan’s Mr Grammar, and immortalised in the waiting-room of language.
The houses in a domino effect of turned backs
show us their gardens as we leave town:
children’s trampolines, basketball
gibbets and the fervent, verdurous algae
in the paddling pool where a deflated ball
puts me in mind of Monet’s waterlilies at Giverny,
scattered with flakes of sun. Then nothing.
Sky, its blue non-sequitur.
Two minutes. Now clothespegs on a line:
quotation marks around an empty afternoon.