A female voice behind me shouts:
“I rate my friends as much as you!
I just think you should know!”
She speaks too loudly and there’s no response.
She’s talking to herself perhaps, or me?

But later, at a boot sale, there she is
With gentleman in tow.
I think she must find learning difficult.
He’s learning fast.
She’s large and middle-aged,
He’s grisled, wizending with scarlet nose.

She wants to buy a picture off a stall.
“The frame’s all broken but the picture’s nice”
She shouts to her young man and to the world.
A crude approximation
Of a Paris boulevard in oils.

And later in their rented room
She hangs the print upon the grubby wall,
While he below in the front yard
Smashes weeds into the wet soil
With a hammer.