In the hollows of afternoons
Young mothers assemble
At swing and sandpit
Setting free their children.
Behind them, at intervals,
Stand husbands in skilled trades,
An estateful of washing,
And the albums, lettered
Our Wedding, lying
Near the television:
Before them, the wind
Is ruining their courting-places
That are still courting-places
(But the lovers are all in school),
And their children, so intent on
Finding more unripe acorns,
Larkin now focuses again on the children and how the mothers are unable to live their own lives and they are merely looking in. Their dreams, aspirations and needs have been put to one side. This is a  metaphor  that suggests the vestiges of romance still exist. 
 The repetition implies that the next generation is doomed to follow the same relentlessly dull fate of their parents. The  enjambment  in this stanza illustrates this unbroken cycle, thus the structure of the poem perfectly mirrors its content.
Afternoons