- Spirea
Then she came, the sybil, out through the doors
of The Bell, the single drinking establishment
permitted in that narrow little country town-
she came out neither staggering nor collapsing...
- A Christmas Morning
One of my father's oldest stories:
how when he was a boy growing up
in that town, there were no ponies.
Buggies were gone almost as soon...
- Scoring
Philip Larkin, 1922-1985
Poets, Larkin, some of us became
for no more reason than a face...
- Roadside Crosses
This is a state where nothing marks the spot
officially. They crop up now and then
out on the Freeway, or in rustic plots
sometimes, near S-curves in the country, when...
- Poppies
This must be how it happens: that the sun
Enlarges the boles, that they become heavy
And bend on their stalks, hanging singly
Or in pairs, in the dry wind, almost done...