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.
Now I'm in a high-end candy shop --
I 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 drink your coffee in one lonely gulp.
❦