Three Poems

Marrakech

Dressed in T shirts to match their skins
the locals group well in the photograph,
an arched back making a top left angle.

Now I can smell the tagine smoke,
see the fine lace lines of blue tiles
packed tight with pieces of red glass

I stop in the gallery to think of you,

and when I look my hands still stain
with saffron bought at market stalls
mixed with the dust from cinnamon sticks.

What had we been doing in Morocco,
somebody like you, and me?
The Djemma el Fnar was a Carnaby Street
and the snakes looked dead, you said.

Levelling over wine at the Hotel Foucauld
...