A Simple Story - Gwen Harwood

A visiting conductor

     when I was seventeen,

took me back to his hotel room

     to cover the music scene.

I'd written a composition.

     Would wonders never cease –

here was a real musician

     prepared to hold my piece.

He spread my score on the counterpane

     with classic casualness,

and put one hand on the manuscript

     and the other down my dress.

It was hot as hell in The Windsor.

     I said I'd like a drink.

We talked across gin and grapefruit,

     and I heard the ice go clink

as I gazed at the lofty forehead

     of one who led the band,

and guessed at the hoarded sorrows

     no wife could understand.

I dreamed of a soaring passion

     as an egg might dream of flight,

while he read my crude sonata.

     If he'd said, ‘That bar's not right,’

or, ‘Have you thought of a coda?’

     or, ‘Watch that first repeat,’

or, ‘Modulate to the dominant’

     he'd have had me at his feet.

But he shuffled it all together,

     and said, ‘That's lovely, dear,’

as he put it down on the washstand

     in a way that made it clear

that I was no composer.

     And being young and vain,

removed my lovely body

     from one who'd scorned my brain.

I swept off like Miss Virtue

     down dusty Roma Street,

and heard the goods trains whistle

     WHO? WHOOOOOO? in aching heat.