My Own Private Ulysses: For Gerty MacDowell, Not Anne Gregory

For Gerty MacDowell, Not Anne Gregory  

‘Never shall a gentleman,

Who longs to be your beau                    

Wooed by your nutbrown tresses         

Lit by the sun’s last glow,            

Love your fair, unsullied soul,          

And not your seaside peep show.’       

‘But I wore nainsook knickers.              

And hid my down-below                   

With lucky blue undies,                

So that any Romeo                            

May love my fair, unsullied soul,           

And not some seaside peep show.’       

‘I read a wild Irishman                

Whose books cause vertigo,                   

His Ulysses forever proves

That even Bloom, full of woe,

Loved not your fair, unsullied soul,   

But only your seaside peep show.’