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(what will survive of us is love)


boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit,
whatever they are,
as bribes to teach them how to execute
sixteen sexual positions on the sand;
this makes them join (the boys) the tennis club,
jive at the mecca, use deodorants, and
on saturdays squire ex-schoolgirls to the pub
by private car.

such uncorrected visions end in church
or registrar:
a mortgaged semi- with a silver birch;
nippers; the widowed mum; having to scheme
with money; illness; age. so absolute
maturity falls, when old men sit and dream
of naked native girls who bring breadfruit,
whatever they are.


philip larkin