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 together,
and said, 'That's lovely, dear,'
as he put it down on the washstand
in away 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.
Gwen Harwood