ENGLISH SUITES
When you wear those headphones I cannot hear
what music you are playing, just the sandal-patter
of silent keys making their mockery of silence.
I lie on our king-sized bed behind you and listen,
watching your head bow sometimes in what looks
like bitter impatience, at others serious agreement.
In your third country now, you are still travelling
and I am perfectly content to ride your slipstream
although you insist I am what you came to find.
Andrew Motion was UK poet Laureate from 1999-2009. His most recent collection The Cinder Path (Faber) has been shortlisted
for The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry.