Jane Draycott – It Won’t Be Long

 

Jane Draycott
It Won’t Be Long

‘With the Beatles’, Parlophone, 22 November 1963

Here comes the sun though it’s November
and half the globe’s in darkness still,
a world in black and white yet colour’s
just around the corner. Our mother’s ill,
her half-moon face towards the wall,
but father you are cooking curry, Vesta –
where the hearth is – though no-one’s
even thought of going to India yet.
What is this shadow? Come together now,
with easy rice, with every good intention,
with navy trim, with matching pillbox hat.
We are with you father in the kitchen,
we are all together. The day’s half-gone,
the moon is up, and mother’s coming down
to help you cook. Soon there will be rice
all over the place. Here comes the heat.
It’s midday now in Dallas and it won’t be long,
stuff you couldn’t put a name to all over the place.

 
 

(published in ‘Newspaper Taxis: Poetry After the Beatles’, Seren Press 2013)