(to Jane Austen)
Your world
where relations are a matter of social algebra
comforts me now.
Is it the distance between us that renders picturesque
the gowns of apricot taffeta,
the hot corseted moralities,
the ruthless certitudes of genteel parlours?
Or is it your heroines?
Their minds dark and cellar-chilled,
their conversations succinct as lace handkerchiefs,
even their rages citric,
never trailing threads of mottled passion
out of the interstices of their lives,
their composure echoed
in the dulcet symmetries of crochet,
the measured tread of moorland walks,
the equipoise of reading books by open windows,
unperturbed by the melancholy
of dusk landscapes.
Bless us, Jane,
my lover and I,
with lime-green shards
of crisp ironic wit
and the secret gift of tenderness
without the deceptions of caramel.