Fluent gesture. Already on the Beauvais bus a man
strokes his son’s head with a palm cupped.
The child’s black hair responds like a young cat.

A boy is sulking beautifully,
legs crossed at the ankles. The girl
ignoring him is reading Kafka – La Procès.
He utters soft plosives, little plumes of indignation
astonished at her cruelty for at least ten kilometres.
When they make up, she rubs the side of his face
With slow fingers for another five before he defrosts.

There are banks of hawthorn along the motorway.
By Paris, the lovers are reconciled. Outside
open-pored sandstone drinks in the south.
I think of Blaithin, her skin made of flowers,
the touch of sun opening them.