You’re interrupted in the book of the film
By someone ringing who’s just seen your name
As the title of an opera. You remember that doctor in Mallaig
Born long before Disney and baptised Donald Duck.
What could he have felt? Normality’s strange –
Always more of it gets delivered in cartons
With the names washed off. Maybe next century
We’ll have extra labels: a noun for the sensation
Of hearing Philip Glass while being driven in a Citroen
Or of sitting down to eat a bag of chips
With two historians of mesmerism near Inverkeithing.
Meantime I’m adjusting to my newfound status
As a matinee for schools. I’m grateful to slip out quietly
By the cellar door and leave myself sometimes
Being private in a deckchair in the garden.
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