Ballad Of The Straight Cafe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

More often than not chance encounters don't turn out as we would like them to, but they are good for an adrenalin rush all the same...

BALLAD OF THE STRAIGHT CAFE

A face glimpsed in a crowd
had haunted me all day
then fate sat us at the same table
in my favourite café

I fought to control the frantic
pounding of my heart,
shied away from his passing glances
as if dazzled by their light

I felt the sweat on my brow
replace unshed tears;
salty drips, a measure of body heat
and unspoken fears

It spread to my groin, that fire
raging through me;
I relished, lapped up the pain, martyr
to my sexuality

His lips parted and let me see
the pinkness of a tongue
tossing words, fuelling the furnace
my body had become

He asked me to pass the salt
and my hand shook;
our fingers brushed and he gave me
the queerest look

I could scarcely breathe, sounds
like stifled screams
of feisty ghosts, last seen tramping
on wet dreams

I blurted out my name, asked his
and a chill wind all but let
the furnace die, left me smouldering
among coals of regret

Yet, a hint of light in his dark eyes,
though the dimmest glow,
warned it was now or never, he and I
our selves to know

[From: On The Battlefields Of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]