Somewhere in a bar we sat playful and demure,
dreams pink mink coats and pergola garden moonflower

Knitted lovers lusting sweaters bring about cheap courtship,
she needles her own in loose loops finger-wide

The gawky girl underlined in borrowed hand,
I signed lavender and tongue-twister in fancy idyll

My ugly laid upon her lustrous eyes capricious,
flowing chestnut caressed down opined lines

This meeting of black sheep on Capel Street;
one a local; one an Odessa odyssey

We favoured no favours the Bard of Avon;
penmanship of the first in question: Henry the Sixth

Sobriety counted on the tracklist sing-song,
backward n’s and eco-vamps lept out from a phone

Musical chairs we played while our stares thronged
peeking, fluttering the esplanade of our ardour

Face-to-face then shoulder-to-shoulder,
our names danced Cyrillic to the last order

Her smile held my heart in tow at the corner,
this final act I wished never to exeunt

Waisted warmth we basked under city light
she held a doting beauty this starry starless night

Then, like Yeats' mermaid who took a suitor:
I forgot that even lovers drown…

© Giuseppe Gillespie – September 2024