Cosmopolitans
by Tris Kerslake
London
Sophisticate, she thought the sixties nothing more than a mid-life crisis. She had her flings with Shakespeare and aristocrats, but still a lady who turned her recent eyes to politics and European statesmen.
A grande-dame, contemplating august days, she shakes her head at bomb threats and the franchised foods that taint her cobbled alleyways and lanes where kings made government and precedent and often, their mistresses.
She wears the age of industry quite well though wrinkles have appeared beneath her smiling mask, and while she might bemoan the endless change she never minds the railways nor the roads, but disregards the tourists.
Plymouth
A country lass with rosy cheeks and hair that ruffles in the breezes from the coast of France. Best known for rumbles with the Spanish fleet she plays the tart with N.A.T.O. and with time, as history becomes her.
She often waves her sailors far away and smiles at names like Mayflower and Gipsy Moth. Her scars of war are almost hidden now but sometimes, in the quiet nights, she tuts at all the endless carparks.
A-stride through watered valleys, crossing streams she reaches over softly-rounded hills, her arms are broad and brown and hold the proudest names. Rustic beauty, she temps the sea with shapely coves and rivers.
Melbourne
A mobile phone away from anyone, she damns the cars that clutter up her painted parks. With chic-black stockings and stiletto shoes, her busy days are fraught with architects and trite domestic faux pas.
She flaunts herself at theatres each night with dinner at the most exclusive eateries. Her name is linked in scandal-sheets with those who build tall spires and steal their millions from savings banks and pensions.
Yet she has style. In marbled halls and shrines she gathers all the notaries of class and shows just what a modern woman does. Besides, she doesn’t really care what you may think. She has her own agenda.
Morlaix
She greets you with a salt-raked ancient smile, and hobbles off to meet the petit bourgeoisie who saunter in and out of market stalls. Ca va, she trills her weekend call, and picks her steps through laneways.
Inky-dressed, she clings to old demeanours lacking any reason to adapt. Black-bird eyes miss nothing as the stuttered French makes fun of ancient tongues, English shoppers scurry as she brings the Gallic rain.
Counting out the francs, her lucid fingers calculate how much to sting the interlopers. Vin ordinaire at cost, but she will take your last centime and chuckle wildly as you part with little fortunes.