One Day In Camden
A greasy-spoon cafe on a Camden-grey day.
I was tired, hung-over, gut-wrenched
when I saw you ordering coffee; black, no sugar.
You sat in the corner. Away.
Your face drew a history that I wasn’t part of.
The sadness I felt didn’t make any sense.
Fried egg and bacon, half-eaten, redundant,
lay dead on my plate. I sipped tea in defence
as you noticed me looking. Eyes quickly averted,
too late, I was filigree falling apart.
You headed toward me in monochrome motion,
your flickering smile an abuse of the heart.
“Hello.”
‘Do I walk or respond? Hell, you’re pain from the past’.
“Good to see you.”
Stay calm now. Pretend’.
“You, too. How you doing?”
You have all the power. Don’t hurt me. It’s started, but how will it end’?
You smelled so familiar, of teen-aged nostalgia.
Oppressive, like Eastwood. A déjà vu crime.
Your hair, (was it blacker?), a family of Ravens,
sat easy on shoulders I’d thought of as mine.
My mind battled logic with wild insanity.
Whimsical endings are celluloid fantasies.
‘Run. Don’t look back’. I was mush. ‘Could you tell’?
Did you know? Could you see in my eyes
that I’m gasping and choking still under you spell’?
“It’s been a long time.” Your voice was the same.
And the lips. Oh, the lips and the kisses I knew.
‘Damn you. Cliché …’
lips that could melt virgin snow in a blizzard.
Same lips saying now, with a smile, “Missed you.”
“Yeah?”, I replied, in a desperate bid to stay light.
Indifference is hard when your head’s on the wall.
“You look good,” you persisted. I held my composure, (I think),
though I shrunk to the size of a ball.
“Thanks,” I shot back with a shrug. ‘Coco diva’.
‘Why now? I was healing and reeling in plenty of frogs’.
Your face, animated, invaded my psyche.
Faint, faraway words in a lost monologue,
mingled in images, sparked, neon-dark, unrelenting.
The battered Toyota, head-rushed to the coast.
Writhing fire-naked nights, waking tight
to the memories still fresh in our sweat.
“How’s your wife?,” and it wasn’t a question
so much as a canvas to paint with your mouth.
“What choice did I have. She was having a kid.”
You seemed suddenly weak. Were you clawing me in?
“He got sick last September. Didn’t make it.”
‘Oh, God! What a slap. Did I want to know more’?
“I’m sorry,” I said.
‘Well, what else could I say?
Was I sorry? Of course. Very sorry. Who for’?
And then shame, in its torrents, smashed into my heart.
My pain a brief storm. Your hurting was more.
Do I reach for that tear dripping soft on your cheek?
Do I catch it or let it drop wet the floor?
Two isles in the ocean, connected beneath.
‘Are the stepping stones there? Is the water too deep?
Am I reaching for rainbows and drowning again?’
We sat with our thoughts to the mourning of rain
in a greasy-spoon cafe on a Camden-grey day.
The past is a murderer needing a rope.
A battered Toyota parked minutes away.
The future, a glorious, hazardous hope.
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