When Mrs Pol goes off to see her aunt
who lives across the town with umpteen cats,
Mr Pol skips upstairs with a smile
to slip on his wife’s best frocks and hats
and pull on her silk stockings and high heels,
her bra, with fillets filling out the slack,
and sometimes when he’s feeling in the mood
he’ll don her cheery little plastic mac.
He’s played these naughty games since, as a child,
he dressed in Mother’s bonnet and her shoes:
he’s not ashamed exactly, but concerned
at the hostility of other people’s views.
So how does he explain it to himself?
It’s really a compulsion not a choice.
It brings to mind his mother’s heady scent,
the fond-remembered romance in her voice.
Oscar Milde
