Our distinguished sponsor today is Hugo Williams, born 1942 (England). The poem "Siren Song" is taken from the collection "Billy's Rain ", faber and faber, 2001.

Siren Song
I phone from time to time, to see if she's
changed the music on her answerphone.
'Tell me in two words', goes the recording,
'what you were going to tell in a thousand'.

I peer into that thought, like peering out
to sea at night, hearing the sound of waves
breaking on rocks, knowing she is there,
listening, waiting for me to speak.

Once in a while she'll pick up the phone
and her voice sings to me out of the past.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up
as I catch her smell for a second.