A gilt-framed painting of Strawberry Hill, seraphs

carved in stone, chatelaines and belts, velvet, sad

little notes ‘for the jaded decadent to wonder at,’

the boy at the loom, presentation copies, gifts of

any kind, a monody, the telegram: ‘burn my letters,’

a white surplice, his photos of the Acropolis, a

polaroid stuck in a book, embroidery, an envelope

edged in black, burning eyes beneath the veil, an

antique scalpel, sonnets painted on a wall, a bedsit,

a cathedral, the dream of a seafarer, typescript in

boxes, a portrait of the king, rain on Magdalen

Bridge, fieldfares, a child’s play staged in a garden,

a hand mirror, a comb, an illustration of the proposal,

fleur-de-lis, a bone in the throat, a curved frame with

a spindle back, videotape, an ancient pose, white

embossed card, buttresses, eyes across a gangway,

an impression made in wax, brocade, a postcard from

Menton, the son of a judge, plovers’ eggs, violet ink,

a record of her condition, a ticket, the sensation of

falling, a motion picture, an index, a fire on the hill.