Your Favourite Hat

Believe me when I tell you that

I long to be your favourite hat

The velvet one. Purply-black

With ribbons trailing at the back

The one you wear to parties, plays,

Assignations on red-letter days

Like a bat in your unlit hall

I’d hang until there came the call

To freedom. To hug your crown

As you set off through Camden Town

To run my fingers through your hair

Unbeknown in Chalcot Square

To let them linger, let them trace

My shadow cast upon your face

Until, on reaching the appointed place

(The pulse at your temple, feel it race!)

Breathless, you whisper: ‘At last, at last.’

And once inside, aside I’m cast

There to remain as tick ticks by

Nap rising at each moan and sigh

Ecstatic, curling at the brim

To watch you naked, there with him

Until, too soon, the afternoon gone

You retrieve me, push me on

Then take your leave (as ever, in haste)

Me eager to devour the taste

Of your hair. Your temples now on fire

My tongue, the hatband as you perspire

To savour the dampness of your skin

As you window-gaze. Looking in

But not seeing. Over Primrose Hill

You dawdle, relaxed now, until

Home Sweet Home, where, safely back

Sighing, you impale me on the rack

Is it in spite or because of that

I long to be your favourite hat?