LESSONS OF LIFE & HISTORY

Cairo smelt of sweet dates, sweat, camels dung, hashish and tangible fear

white noise barter and banter in the bazaars irked her more than a little

also, she noticed that the wily toffs, those gaudy suited moneyed ones

donned the reddest fezzes, wore ‘hammer and sickle’ fashioned cufflinks

bewildered she took the last ocean liner out of Alexandria

across The Med, home to timeworn England’s pastures green

within her productive invention, she saw

towering evergreens mask a nest of ferns

disguise an undergrowth of helpless combs

paint a permanent eventide, never to betray

a murder, self-destruction or a clandestine union

of thickest skinned untamed carefree true lovers

now safe and sound, the bespectacled librarian

read Shakespeare and counted pennies

she loathed bigots, arranged marriages and Chaucer

and, although her mousey disposition indicated otherwise

virginity was an irrelevant thing she could not claim

as her own, less spoken of, timid virtue