Sudden Sailing

Sometimes on damp evenings
he still rises from his desk
to hold each of my shoulders like a careful cup and ask about my Latin,

then sloping across thin paper
benevolentia humanitas pietas,
as if I couldn't remember.

Outside his window it is raining
the light bunches like blue molluscs,
his pipe flares, a timber box between teeth,

I am told that the air all pistachio and teal
is deciduous between the shelves.
Now would not be a good time to talk.

My grandmother brings
us her oolong tea in old mugs
and halts to ask, in the manner of a mandolin, about Jeremy.

On the sofa behind the door
a crest of books replete with notes like a pin cushion
watch me, leaf legs hovering like a stickleback.

Suddenly on a deserted road, we're waiting -
the sublime, swimming up for air like a fish
like a love
like a landscape.