My April Fools’ Day in Spain was no laughing matter
Poet and artist Frieda Hughes reveals her revelries during a book tour in springtime Madrid
The sense that my inner organs were swilling in my boots
As my age lurched forward another year overnight, was an illusion.
It was April the First but no joke, although I could hear Paul McCartney
Singing “When I’m 64” inside my head, even as I woke.
I remembered the blue rinse perms and floral household pinafores
Of the 60-year-olds in my childhood as I reached for my ankle-boot heels,
Black leather coat and boarding pass for Madrid. The book launch of George
Was going to list him with Ukraine, China, Turkey, America and now Spain.
Age, and the interviews, from the moment I landed
To the minute of my leaving, separated me from hen parties
Of younger women with their matching slogan shirts, extended eyelashes,
Glossy lips and fishnet skirts. The procession of journalists
Asked no two questions the same as I re-examined George again
In the bookshop; “Poppies in October”. Across the road
Of flowering purple trees stood the centre for musical copyright,
Its window edges and doorways curling towards the heavens
Around the splintered rainbow of a central glass skylight.
It is beneath the memory of this I hear
The carbon monoxide alarm that I tore from the wall
Beeping forlornly at the end of the hall.