To Margaret

1   Incipe

At the Brices’ party you had such style
In that simple black frock,
I had to pluck up a lot of courage
To ask you to dance with me.
‘We haven’t met for fourteen years –
Since we were six, in fact.’ I retain undimmed
Your prompt, responsive smile, its warmth –
A spiritual kiss of immediate friendship.
It saddened me, though: I thought
‘This girl is out of my class’, and think so still.

2   Wedding Photograph

Here you are all in white,
Deliciously, almost absurdly, nubile:
Your delicate features softened,
Transfigured, by the generous light
That is the focus of your mind –
And this image and all these words
But the preamble
To the kind contract.

3   The Art of Quarrelling

Many marital quarrels
Are games, the pay-off being
To make it up in bed.
Frankly, Margaret,
You play dirty. You say in effect
‘Yes, you’re quite right,
I am inadequate and/or
Whatever else you allege’ –
Which is not the case and puts me
In the absurd position
Of having to carry your part
As well as my own. But once
You enquired with venomous emphasis
‘Why don’t you just fuck off?’
Love, I was so delighted –
We both had won.

Attempted love and sexual identity form the recurring themes of W.G. Shepherd’s third collection of poems. As in his previous books, Sun, Oak, Almond, I (1970) and Evidences (1980), he writes searchingly in a variety of styles, lyric, narrative and reflective. His poems, wrote Christopher Hope reviewing Evidences, ‘are a rare blend: thoroughly disciplined yet unrelentingly experimental.’ W.G. Shepherd writes compellingly, whether exploring ideas of emotional loss through the broken discourse of the ‘Serenade’ poems, portraying the frustrations of the immature and egocentric character in the verse biography ‘Guy’, or translating an erotic poem by Ovid.