After years of grubby underpants
her menopausal yearnings turn to
escargots. She wanders across France,
drinks absinthe in the poshest bistros,
squandering the kids’ inheritance.
Father sullen in his garden shed
meditates on worms and broccoli
while Mother and her dodgy knees dance
on table-tops to tarantellas
twice a night in downtown Napoli.
Partnered by a cockney gigolo
she travels eastwards for a flavour
of the orient, flies north to snow,
then Botswana for the game, savours
pungent redolence of beast. Untamed
at seventy, Mother’s done it all;
gravity tugs at sagging breasts,
glossy brochures fall and lie unread.
The cellar’s almost dry. And yet …
She reaches out for her distance specs
and looks up into the moonlit sky.