Wear and Tear

Buttons like liquorice Catherine wheels
on the cape coat I always loved you in.

No longer flush, the top one dangles
by two last threads, face down.

A couple of minutes, why not sort it?
For God’s sake
, you say, turning back the lapel.

You’re obsessed. Flip through the pages
of your Grazia. Mum’ll fix it.

Monday, doing it up for work, the shock,
where, when — in the surge off the tube

at Green Park, plucked from the back
of the seat at the Curzon?

Could be anywhere.