Julia Lewis

On returning your homework

over which you appear to have spent
several hours, I feel obliged to remark
it's not necessary to make still life
of the conical flask and teat pipette.
Diagrammatic sketches suffice. But yes,
I note you are handy with a pencil;
It is older and wiser than your pen.

And yes, you may surprise me. No, not
by washing my car, or wasting your money.
Shop roses are, in any case, travesties.
Consider preferring, as the lingua franca
of flowers, a peony: its three-week season
precludes an impulse-buy. You may even
come to prefer to give them to yourself.

You will please observe form. Use
my title and surname as other girls do.
Pigeon-holes are strictly for late
assignments. Poems remain locked
in your diary – the heat of whose pages
might hatch their escape in due course.
As for you question, it's unanswerable

precisely because it is a question.
The world will demand answers
before you are ready. Be as vague,
for as long, as you can. I assure you
there is nothing mysterious about me.
Rangers just scored, the first of the season.
My husband is mending the garage door.