kaberett | between "green thread"/and "broccoli" you find/that you have pencilled "sunlight"

(The Word, Tony Hoagland.)

This morning I have been Making A Contribution To Medical Science, and consequently I have a plaster with a dinosaur on it. The ?nurse was very apologetic about it being paediatrics plasters, until I went DOES IT HAVE A DINOSAUR ON, at which point we were excitable at each other about Sophie the stegosaurus. As we were getting to finishing up paperwork, having spotted the quearring also, I tentatively enquired as to whether I might ask an intrusively personal question. "... yes," he said, warily. "You've been very carefully saying partner..." I said, and he ducked his head and looked at his ring and said "yeah, husband, we've been together for ten years and married for five", and then we had a cheerful little discussion about queers and how his husband's one of very few male midwives in the country, and they've just bought a house together and are looking forward to the long weekend, and CATS and PAINTING THE HALLWAY and in general domestic bliss, and it was lovely.

And I am updating you all on this from Homerton College Cambridge Cambs, where I am sat in the sunshine in a scented garden next to a sundial and a water feature gently applying desensitisation therapy and leeching eduroam, and when I am done I shall pack up my computer and head over the railway bridge to have lunch with my mum.