A Visit from Queen Mary
A ruby flower brooch slipped into a handbag.
A perky Monet discretely smuggled
to her Daimler by a grumpy, sleep-deprived footman.
Dukes trembled before her droit du seigneur,
the military music that bullied all day
from her portable gramophone.
A centuries old oak cut down on her host’s estate
because she didn’t like its insolent attitude.
A lady-in-waiting peremptorily sacked
because her voice gave out
after reading aloud for seven hours.
Selfishness is the squawking toad
that is delivered on, then devours a silver plate.
A biographer who was invited to lunch
fiddled nervously with his collar
in the royal presence. After an hour’s talk
about the undying loyalty of dogs,
the careless grammar of the lower classes,
the beastliness of paper napkins,
he had a thunderclap epiphany:
fear was replaced by a boredom so ruthless
that it drained all colour from the room.