The Wyman’s Bookstall (Mrs. Griff) is open
and Gordon, third year politics at UCL,
buys The Times and The Economist. Jim, younger,
on his drama course in Cardiff, buys The Guardian.
Carys is nearly late, swings a lovely smile
at Mrs. Griff, buys chocolate, and when she’s set,
in the compartment, in the corner (the boys 
facing each other, reading), she has her artist’s pad.
She is heading back to her school of art and muses, 
on cinemas, the Rolling Stones, the coffee bars.
 
Stern Gordon has been recently told
that he is cute. He has been called Sweet boy.
He has been laughed and giggled about, 
and with a skip of mind he’s never known before,
he’s cuddled to her breathlessly, in love and awe.
They met at the last Hunt Ball, he’d cadged an invite,
and she is County family, her father owns estates. 
And Gordon dreams of future Party short lists .. 
Evenings, the charmer fluffs his hair.
 
Carys has started to sketch within ten minutes,
the threaded hedges of mid-Pembrokeshire. 
In an hour she’ll be sketching industry,
the pock-marked moon-scene of Landore,
later some racehorse country, and in between
the smiling Irishman who is taking tickets.

In Cardiff Central, drama student Jim
nods quietly to Gordon, Carys, then away. 
Social calls, then his flat on the Ponty road.
Later he’ll walk his landlord’s Scottie Tosh
along the mountain. Back in town, his girlfriend Sue 
is racked by unhappiness still. Bereavement eases,
he just needs time to think of her, let the breeze, 
always there on this mountain, pump up his strength
for the girl, help him to ride odd cruelties.

Swindon, Reading, and Carys dreams for a while
of still life, Warhol, the espresso bars,
and then Porthgain, her sister and the baby. 

Again, on the tube, her mind keeps dancing
away from the Palais to the family farm, 
her sister and her baby niece. She’s an auntie now
at seventeen, but looming like an autumn sky 
is her sister’s plan to emigrate next year, 
to fly to America like the Canada geese.