Tuesday Poem: POMAGNE

BY BLAKE MORRISON

`Be careful not to spill it when it pops.

He'd bloody crucify me if he caught us.'

We had taken months to get to this,

our first kiss a meeting of stalagmite

and stalactite. The slow drip of courtship:

her friend, June, interceding with letters,

the intimate struggle each Friday

under the Plaza's girder of light.

But here we were at last, drinking Pomagne

in her parents' double bed, Christmas Eve

and the last advent-calendar door.

`Did you hear the gate click?' `No, did you?'

Our poems until Wednesday come from Blake Morrison's `Selected Poems' (Granta Books, pounds 8.99)