‘Come In, Number Seven!’ and Other Poems

The Figure in the Tapestry
 
A woman is doing her embroidery in the converted chapel.
And there is Priam in his seven-walled city, look,
That tumbles over the Umbrian hill like golden syrup.
And who is that stumpy figure
Hopping on one leg? Rumpelstiltskin?
Crows punctuate the sky. And as she dozes
The figure opens its mouth as if to cry
Or drink. In his lapel two poppies
(Remembrance and Oblivion). In her mind
He is saying this, though not in speech.
– Think Dunkirk in reverse
With half the boats and twice the angels
Not all of them guardian. Our mission was
To rescue that young woman for Burne-Jones
And bring with us the first slave-owning democracy
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