"We can't help you with that,
but we can offer you
an open gate,
an honest smile,
a living room carpeted
with warmth
and trimmed
with good conversation.

"What we do have
we can offer you,
rest for your bones
and truth at our hearth.

"You are most welcome."

A stew of slow cookers
sit simmering
slowly brewing a communal stock,
seaping steam and aromas
which speak a seductive welcome
from doorstep to table
and whisper a warm, rich reassurance
that this is home

you were my home then,
the warmth in my fireplace, my
chest purifier, key finder;
whenever i leave you clung to me like dirt on the dishes
i carry with me your sickness for
love, for good.

somewhere between morning calls and warm bedsheets, i took
your hospitality for kindness for authenticity for love for truth
i was still drying my hair on your bathroom mat when you rang
the bell, and reminded me it’s time for
my checkout.

Here I stand on the ***** of my feet,
Watching as the time passes by.
The day fulfilling the dreamers,
The night exhausting the lost.
Why must I move on?
Why must I go?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.

Here I sit under a stately willow tree,
Accompanying me with its hospitality.
It droops as it stands so mighty,
It rises as it slumps in humility.
Why must the tree persist?
Why must the tree grow?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.

Here I lie in a box of plastered wooden veneer,
My eyes encumbered by pitchy darkness.
I breathe my gratitude of this quietus,
I cry my despair for my own creation.
Why must I wallow in my regret?
Why must I now feel this woe?
Now I know.
Now I know.

All beauty must fade,
          wither, crack, split, die,
                    and so too the beauty
of sweet hospitality
          loses something magical
                    when put to a test.
Splintering down to
          strained smiles,
                    curt little whispers
behind a turned back
          summon up strangleweed
                    between the gaping cracks
of a path we walked
          for so long until "so long."
                    There's a blind desire
to douse what remains
          in that left-behind radiance
                    with a drowning of petrol,
a gasoline baptism,
          and send it out with a pyre:
                    something to remember.

My Saturdays belong
to a quaint Parisian cafe.
I only have to think about carrying coffees
and baguettes
and they pay me for it.
It's the cheapest therapy I've had.

I've come to know some of the regulars.
Some days I wish
to tell them I love them
and I don't quite know why.
I suspect they remind me
in some part of myself,
or how I wish to be.

An almost elderly lady
always comes alone.
Her hair still retains some of her blonde youth.
She orders two very weak flat whites
and sits for hours,
writing letters to distant loves
and reads the paper.
I clear her cup
and she smiles
with both her lips and her eyes.
She makes you feel like your job
means something more than it probably does.
I bring her a second coffee,
a very weak flat white.

In the afternoons
a couple comes in for coffee.
She is quiet,
the artistic type,
and wears their son in a sling.
A sweet little thing with cherubic cheeks.
The father is a darling man
with a softness many men resist.
I watch the way his eyes sparkle
when he tells me of his sons milestones.
I make an effort to see them smile,
bring them water on hot days
or just talk.
But sometimes I leave them be,
watch them from a far,
and let myself be swept up in their love,
before they leave.

My Saturdays belong
to a quaint French cafe
with dark timber floors
and French antiques.
I haven't quite mastered the art of conversation
but I'm adept in the science of smiling
and that's enough to get me by
for now.