In the Green Room

(for Alison Dunne and Michael Donaghy)

She’s washing dinner dishes
as I sit at the kitchen table,
leafing through her copy of
'Remembering Dances
Learned Last Night.'

All the time she's talking-

Remember the Green Room
at the Bloomsbury?
How we scoffed those sarnies?
Guzzled that wine?

We’ll drink this one for Michael,
Alison says, and pours two neat
Armagnacs into crystal glasses.

Ah, yes, I think, that’s how
I’ll always remember the two of you-
calm before the reading:
you, thrilled and slightly tipsy,
twirling strands of your hair as you spoke;

and Michael standing behind you, a shy
and gentle man, looking like a refugee
from some exiled orchestra, searching
for the safest place to practise his flute.