Not even a casual glance

from the manta ray slowly gliding by.

Solitary, majestic, fins billowing

softly like sheer curtains

stirring in a large airy suite at the Savoy.

Insouciant cabinet minister,

party whip, moving without haste.

Trim in his morning waistcoat, he undulates

farther into the milky blue,

then all at once vanishes,

leaving me with stolid groupers cued up

like cabbies along the Strand.