20 JULY 1991, Page 29

Public Incident

for Edward

You looked at me with such unjustified trust — In this case that I'd got a joke - That I felt, in the street, my throat choke.

Then a woman gazed at you with such pure lust To kidnap you, or any tot, With the benevolence of the witch Mad to boil small boys in a doting-pot, That I moved on, with you and the joke I hadn't quite got, Happy in my humorous half-possession.

Not that one owns much, not That one is in any particular way rich, Not that one knows quite how to love. Which Is an everyday confession.

James Michie