GLOWING EMBERS

Posted by Admin on 17 May 2006, 12:00 am

How elegant you were! Your legs
vermilion-clad beneath a Cossack blouse,
gold-patterned on black silk,
with buckled shoes to match.
We sat apart, conforming to our code,
the hearth-rug’s length between,
while through a cautious afternoon
we talked restrainedly
of books, of course, and ballet,
and how our worlds had wagged
since last we met –
until, predestined as both knew,
we broached your husband’s expertise
in making everything but love.
Oh how I wished to analyse with you
the quality of our rapport!
But barriers of Thou Shalt Nots,
cemented long ago, forbade
some move that might effect
a chain-reaction neither was,
au fond, prepared to start.
At tea (too serious by far)
we toyed with metaphysics,
exchanging recollections of
supposed transcendence.
Your car arrived at six,
and with punctilio we parted:
you to a makeshift marriage –
I, writer dominant, to exploitation
of fact-based fantasy in free verse.