Cool of the Day

It was an evening for the mowing of lawns,
the clipping of hedgerows.
Not staying indoors
with the soap opera, the idiots’ quiz
or watching CNN
for news of the next apocalypse.

My companion was sitting in bluejeans,
in the walled garden,
sipping a wine of Burgundy
that was close to a menstrual colour,
enjoying the best weather in weeks,
the indolent heat of an Indian summer.

Her face has always been the iconography
of my best dreams: my gladness,
my rapture, my golden apple.
In the walled garden she was chatting away,
her necklace of pearls,
– the mother-to-daughter heirloom she wears –
as cool as the cool of the day .

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