Tuesday 19

So whaddya want for your birthday - apart 
from breakfast in bed & coffee brewed that 
special way, selflessness pledged in things
practically available excepting if we’d need 
insurance against misadventure? It means 
a Bulcock Beach stroll with fish-and-chips 
for lunch earns first place - though I guess 
Kings, Shelly & Moffat may well disagree 

Or you can lie abed remembering winsome 
pleasures lie-ins once entailed, of engaging 
revival - of hailed legendary feats of passion 
(like one-handed reading) with the aura of 
deliciously buzzing expectation - or a less 
complicated engagement tete a tete 

Perhaps accommodation could seek new 
heights, with structural feints to store ideas 
against a future hazy with ‘ifs and maybes’, 
all this painted onto canvases of vast scale  
and solidity to keep our love’s colours alive  
in amazing vibrancy with simple scenes  

Or we can settle for flowers and DVDs you 
say complement your gentler age - inviting 
new expressions of who & what matters in 
moon’s phase shows and argent astrology - 
or reminding me just what is so portentous 
about Tuesday 19 which I needed to know 

© 12 November 2013, I. D. Carswell