Sunday Supplement - Stephen Duffy, The Lilac Time

In the summer and her pinafore

She thought she’d love for ever more

How soon things sour

Past the bewitching hour she finds

Herself in Winter deep inside her coat

The past is just an anecdote

She can’t forget for it’s her alphabet of time

Will there be a war

Will she die or will she know

And find the pain of youth still shows?

Like Mary Tyler-Moore

She stares across the yawning tide

Out of love and terrified

In the Sunday colour magazine

She reads a line and then she dreams

Of what she’ll do

When she leaves you again

She knows that home was once a wild unknown

As always her own chaperone

Catch the bus from wilderness or to

Hold on tight, catch that bus

Fares please, ding ding ding