New Gallery

In another station
someone else said my name
with more questionmark than sound:
I didn't look up at you
for the first time
from a book of poems.
I was not so nervous, here and now -
I'd done all this before.

In a different gallery
I looked at pictures
of other naked bodies,
slid my eyes away,
did not meet yours,
hot shy.

There was more I liked
in this exhibition:
I could have walked round
the Carl Andre sculpture
of mirrored cubes
which reflected each other
in coolly perfect mathmatical infinity
of emptiness
for ever

but he wanted to show me
some Gabo sculptures
he knew I'd want to see -
fragile things of perspex.
"What's so special
about perspex?" he asked.
"It bends when it gets hot." I said.
"Glass breaks."