Mynheer Wouwermans

From the long ride, fresh trees
licked by enough blue light
to cross-patch antique trousers,

we come at last past casks
head-dressed with tulips
to this puzzling concourse

where white signs agree to open
a house decked by strangers
with an attentive love.

‘Mynheer, do you remember?
Yes, twenty-five years.’
Our polls are whiter than old snow

but your children are fresh as paint,
rocking softly to a lullaby
sung by a Dutch doll in a carved bed.

Shall we make solemn playtime,
hiding our wiser faces
in crimson velvets, rusty tassels?

Over there, in the English pub —
the Wagon and Horses —
a soft tom-tom thicks the air

to a stuffed smell in a dark pocket,
the press of occupation,
smoke rising.