Cataract operation

The Sun comes like a head

through last night's turtleneck.

  A pigeon in the yard turns tail

and offers me a card. Any card. 

From pillar to post, a pantomime

of damp, forgotten washing

on the washing line.

So, in the breeze:

  the olé of a crimson towel.

the cancan of a ra ra skirt,

the monkey business of a shirt

pegged only by its sleeve, 

the cheerio of a handkerchief. 

I drop the blind

but not before a company

of half a dozen hens

struts through the gate,

looks round the courtyard

for a contact lens.

  Simon Armitage