W To Ms.A.R.

To Ms A.R. As A Gesture Of Thanks
(She knows this to be incomplete)

It seems to me Ms.Wendy Cope
(in her younger days) would moon round places
where sallow boys with yearning faces
read her lines composed with hope

for the world, but also hope (unsaid)
that they might lure her into bed.
Of course, they rarely had the luck
to feel her bra (or shift their braces),

for (in her youth) to muck
with sex was fun but base (is
still?), and dangerous too. The dope
might marry you; lay his dread

across your mind. The nightly grope
turn into torture (till you're dead).
But now, Ms.Cope has got the pluck
to say quite simply: Shall we fuck?