Take me home with you, please, Pretty Polly!
Our courtship has lasted too long.
I know you so well from a distance
that my hopes of a meeting are strong.

I spy you at Underground stations
while waiting for trains to come in;
you’re wearing the sheerest of nylon
on your salmon-pink acres of skin.

You’re immaculate here at Embankment
on the safe other side of the track;
No man will cross over to touch you
till the lucky bill-sticker comes back.

I think I can read the intention
behind these displays of your charms.
No matter which station I’m watching you at
you’re inviting me into your arms.

No I’m not! I’m the composite fancy
of some men in a marketing team.
They sat round a table and made me;
their image, their product, your dream.

And I have one distinct disadvantage
at the end of the length of your stare:
this form is a giant illusion;
I’m not, in reality, there.

But I’m still coming home with you, Polly!
I’m too much in love to desist.
Oh please ask me up for a coffee;
let me show you you really exist.

I could help you take off all that nylon
far away from the Bakerloo Line.
I’d be yours, unvoyeuristically, Polly, I would
and you’d be, unsynthetically, mine.