The women are all wearing imitation silk scarves,

Blackpool or Biarritz, sipping Woman, masticating

The morning's post, new babies and bathrooms, going

To file, snip, fiddle and smile through fish-eyes,

Crinkly green gloss, store it in stocking-tops

For next year abroad, that Pill, so perfect!

Flashing smiles from shiny domes and polished eye-lenses,

The men are glossy all over, snapping mortgages and scores

They slap fellow-souls at a distance, gun down the abusive

Clacking conductress, apologise over-loudly for their too

Quiet cars. Plump fingers stroke smooth cheeks - bounce

Bounce, bouncing baby- faces, so manly to wet-shave!

Head heavy from dreams of bronze-fleshed centaurs

Tense with ‘The New Poets' - no rhythm, failure of connection,

Who slept with who to get in. Aargh!

Forty rose-bearing ten-year old faces are waiting

And behind them in the staff-room corpses are coffined

In eternal celluloid faces.