They start to say autumnal in the forecasts,
And on the Northern Line the shifting panels
Look bleached already. I think less about
The low-cost rivieras than the remedies
At the ends of small pale almanacs for afflictions
Acquired by the old, or suffered by loners
In the margins of respectable families
— Ailments with names we don’t use any more.
Each black-and-white ad in the narrow columns
Promised miracles on the same unlikely terms,
For the sender sitting in a bedroom corner
To seal an envelope bought that afternoon…
Could I even imagine one such to be my own,
With a man returning from a PO Box in Strood
And sending by return, as promised, the First Lesson
In his course called Why Not Join Me in the Coloured Pages?
You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it
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