Grand Union Canal
‘Touched by some indefinite romance’
as if it were late autumn sunlight
round midday flaring on face edges
had done it, diners at a restaurant,
we watched how sticks of furniture
ranged along a barge’s roof
would glide past while desserts arrived
or later, left behind, a way off,
were studying primary schoolkids’ seats
like toadstools in a patch of grass…
Then beyond that blue wrought-iron bridge
at Little Venice, down by the water,
half-lost in those Sunday crowds,
they turned and waited till we caught them,
young lovers, one our younger daughter
touched by some indefinite romance.
Biography: Peter Robinson is Professor of English and American Literature at the University of Reading. A new collection of his poetry, Retrieved Attachments, will be published in February 2023.