Saturday 25 February 2012

Ballad of the Straight Cafe

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

More often than not chance encounters don't turn out quite as we expect but can be good for an adrenaline rush all the same. It is also true to say that life is full of surprises, none more amazing at times than other people.

We might think we can read someone's body language like a book, and arrive at certain conclusions, forgetting they may well be able to read ours, too, and arrive at their own...

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]

No comments: