I Eat Poetry

Eating rashers and beans
In Woolworth's cafeteria,
Thinking of three-speed gears
Or perhaps of James Stewart
(Certainly not of you,
Rusticated for Lent
In the drizzle and pasture
Of County Carlow's farmland),
I saw you at the counter,
Sliding your tray along,
Not in your dark green gymslip
But a cable-stitch jumper
And not too modest skirt.

Laid-back today, ironic,
I live with unsurprises,
But then my heart, no, diaphragm,
Was jolted from below
As if a whale had surfaced
In waters off Cape Clear,
Showed its encrusted flanks
And slowly resubmerged
Into a flux of foam--
Undreamt-of elemental
Making its presence felt.

I was unseen, invisible,
Anything to avert
The artificial lightning
And removal of bandages.
Time enough for the first steps
On stiff legs in the laboratory.

-"Age Twelve," Fergus Allen


And a question. Is it ever amazing to anyone else here that we can understand poetry in the English language? I know people who are native speakers of other languages have the same thing with those languages, but it's astounding to me sometimes what I can understand in my own language that would be incomprehensible to a non-native speaker. I don't know. Sorry for being so nebulous. :)