Alan Brownjohn

Autumn Shades

issue 08 November 2014

They start to say autumnal in the forecasts,
And on the Northern Line the shifting panels
Look bleached already. I think less about
The low-cost rivieras than the remedies
At the ends of small pale almanacs for afflictions
Acquired by the old, or suffered by loners
In the margins of respectable families
— Ailments with names we don’t use any more.






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