So thin, my school-friend’s mother, I had her confused
with Olive Oyl. His father had muscles like Popeye.
Each evening, heading home, he passed our house.
A cabinet-maker, his shirt was always open,
his chest hairy. In a room where three brass balls
swung in the globe of a clock, he played the flute.
My cousin played the oboe. It made our spaniel
lift snout and howl. She practised the Dvorak solo
from the ‘New World’. Mum accompanied on the Grand.
All that was during the War. Years later I heard
for the first time our National Orchestra.
There was my cousin at the oboe, and at the flute
starch-fronted and bow-tied, the cabinet maker!
Defeated Germany lived again in the woodwinds.