Only I was allowed to sit
on the Golden Bidet of Lerici.
Lord Byron sat on it
as well as Percy Bysshe and Mary.
D.H. Lawrence swung by
and perched there like a demigod –
as well as Frieda von Richthofen.
Virginia Woolf sat on it in 1933
knocking out a beautiful sentence –
Max Beerbohm banging at the door.
Henry James dropped his drawers
to sit on that glittering throne,
his buttocks pale and tragic.
I bestraddle the cosmic rocket.
Five, four, three, two, one…
