Tursac

Her pleasure whispered through a much-kissed smile.
‘Oh, rock me firmly at a gentle pace!’
My love had lusty eagerness and style.
Propriety she had, preferring grace
Because she saw more virtue in its wit,
Convinced right conduct should have glamour in it
Or look good to an educated eye,
And never more than in those weeks of France
Perfected into rural elegance,
Those nights in my erotic memory.
I call that little house our Theba de
(The literary French!), and see her smile,
Then hear her in her best sardonic style:
‘Write out of me, not out of what you read.’

First published in Elegies(Faber, 1985), from New Selected Poems 1964-2000 (Faber, 2003) © Douglas Dunn 2003, used by permission of the author c/o United Agents.

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