After Wisława Szymborska

I prefer TV One to TV Two for serious
drama, classical music to rock,
a quiet meal out with friends
to a rave at a nightclub.

I lean towards dinner parties
to drunken parties, and bottled
pinot gris to the Chateau cardboard
of my youth.

I favour Wisława Szymborska’s lines:
“I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.”
And all things poetry-related to trashy
magazines so full of gossip I feel dirty
after I’ve read them.

My senses sing for Jane Austen’s
Sense and Sensibility but I shy
from horrors like Carrie, Pet Sematary,
and It – they scare me senseless.
(See, I am an eighties girl.)

I prefer English dramas to American
sitcoms with their loud, fake canned
laughter and I only just found out
it’s called that.

My preference is for Film Festival
movies over serial killer thrillers –
I have learned to appreciate
sub-titles - but it’s hard to justify
the prevalence of shows like Criminal Minds,
C.S.I. Las Vegas, Miami and New York
when S.K.’s are responsible for less
than 1% of all killings according
to the F.B.I.

I prefer to have formed preferences
in a life lived long enough I can chart
their course amongst a raft of possibilities,
now that I’m a grown up.