5 AUGUST 1989, Page 32

Could Be

I shall have Beauty underground. Poppaea is in the tumbrel with me. So are blithe Helen and white lope And Lianne de Pougy.

And I shall have conversation. Byron will ask for me.

I was the richest kid in school, The richest in Missolonghi was he.

But what if I'm not an aristo?

What if their hearts are bleeding for me?

Could be, could be. Could be That I don't have a pedigree.

And I do not get to meet Oscar Wilde (An inveterate reader, like me) And hear from his lips the one that ends Humilie et aneanti.

Ben Sonnenberg