When love is on the wrong side of the sheets
romance must give way to expedience
and, short of coupling in the public streets,
all places serve at love’s convenience.
Beside stormwater drains; in fields of wheat;
in lifts; against a sturdy paling fence:
all fifteen-minute feather beds for cheats.
At best: the boardroom table; worst: the gents.
Yet all this grubby fumbling in the dark
does add a certain spice to things, and while
the rusting old rotunda in the park
may bruise and chafe, it has some outlaw style
– and with no place to spoon after the buzz
we can’t pretend it means more than it does.