A window seat with a flat white.
Everywhere you look, insistent light.
His upper-class hands were so very steady
he might have been a surgeon,
only he didn’t have the face for it:
who’d dare to hide such looks behind a sterile mask?
Something in the angle of his posture
suggested that he had poor bedside manner.
Half-finished cigarette. Blurred glass.
A smirk—or sneer—that twists the mouth.
My schoolgirl days are back:
I know them by the scratchy woolen socks.
I walk into a high-end candy shop
and beeline straight for the dark chocolate.
And then the marmalade.
Unruly curl of hair. Pinstripes. Cufflinks.
Idleness roaring like a train,
you start to speculate about his life.
What sort of liquor he might drink at clubs.
How his hands might hold the glass—
just so, just so—
and how the light might quiver.
And how it all might taste.
You down your coffee in one lonely gulp.