Here is The News

(Here is) The News

I switched on the TV last night.
It was the nine o'clock news.
The guy was saying something about
UN forces being called in.

A trade embargo.

He stopped reading the news:
He looked right into the camera
and down at his hands on the newsdesk.

He sighed, then spoke of how he had been on holiday in Aranjuez,
Which is a town in Spain, near Madrid.

He'd been there with his wife.
She was called Sally.
They'd looked out from their hotel balcony
At the old Spanish town in the moonlight:
The bullring and the old town hall.

(His voice grew soft and reverent.)
He and Sally had drunk some good Rioja.......
and listened to the music of Claude Debussy.
The stars had been their witness.

Then he told the nation of how
they had made love.
It had been just like
When they had first met
At Cardiff University
Back in 1972.

He stopped talking then and looked
a bit embarrassed
But he grinned.

I shouted to my brother
who was in the kitchen.
By the time he got in the room
It was all over.

I could scarcely believe it.