Saturday Poem

for your hats: three battered panamas

trimmed with striped Petersham bands

that squat in the mahogany dark.

One a jaunty fedora, the sort worn by

a Cuban paterfamilias with hairy arms,

sporting a large Havana cigar.

The other more elegant,

with a wide brim and a Mafioso air

that would be at home on a terrace

above the sparkling bay of Naples,

with a plate of frutti di mare

and a carafe of local wine,

or on the bald pate of an oncologist

watching his young mistress

slowly tanning in the sun.

The third, the most battered

with a hole in the crown,

is the one you wore to deadhead

the roses in your rust-coloured

chinos and old cashmere, before

settling with that glass of G&T

as the sun went down.

Now afternoon fades

into evening and the deep wardrobe,

mute with mothballed memories,

radiates its own particular light.

This is the world you’ve left behind

and there is silence everywhere.
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