Paul Muldoon Cauliflowers                                             Plants that grow in the dark have been developed             through gene-splicing, in which light-producing             bacteria from the mouths of fish are introduced to             cabbage, carrots and potatoes.                                                             The National Enquirer More often than not he stops at the headrig to light his pipe and try to regain his composure. The price of cauliflowers has gone down two weeks in a row on the Belfast market. From here we can just make out a platoon of Light Infantry going down the road to the accompaniment of a pipe- band. The sun glints on their silver- buttoned jerkins. My uncle, Patrick Regan, has been leaning against the mud-guard of the lorry. He levers open the bonnet and tinkers with a light wrench at the hose-pipe that's always going down. Then he himself goes down to bleed oil into a jerry-can. My father slips the pipe into his scorch-marked breast pocket and again makes light of the trepanned cauliflowers. All this as I listened to two lovers repeatedly going down on each other in the next room . . . 'light of my life . . . ' in a motel in Oregon. All this. Magritte's pipe and the pipe- bomb. White Annetts. Gillyflowers. Margaret, are you grieving? My father going down the primrose path with Patrick Regan. All gone out of the world of light. All gone down the original pipe. And the cauliflowers in an unmarked pit, that were harvested by their own light. 1990