You Must Remember This

Two stiff cardboard tickets,

both fit in the special pocket

trousers used to have.

Weekend return, no reservations

on our part, another escapade

beckons, we wink at the porter.

We chose the railway hotels;

convenient, convivial,

no identification required,

paying by access, before mastercard:

the sibilant sweep across

the quadruplicate voucher.

All different, yet the same,

York, Edinburgh, Newcastle.

Food and decor firmly

in the fifties still.

We travelled to the moon

and back, without leaving the room.