Two years,
but will we make it to three?
Pimple a stipple of red paint
on my chin,
mouth scarred pink with the last deposits
of lipstick.
I am making an effort
for myself, then himself.
He has booked it all,
a mildly impressive stat. A restaurant
where a bottle of ooh-la-la French wine,
sweating its chill, costs both arm and leg,
where meals take up a sixteenth
of the plate, christened with a garden leaf.
I do not speak of my concerns.
His face is awash with tiredness,
his eyes somehow a darker sea-blue
than our first meeting, several iPhones ago.
Our speech is exhalation brief,
each syllable like a book
falling in an empty library,
everything written, little said.
The wine dyes my inner cheeks,
but the food: Greek salad, crescent moon tomatoes,
vinyl cucumbers, feta cheese slabs
and tang of onion burning back of the mouth.
His, souvlaki, fish cadaver on the side,
wine also white, extortionate, though I haven’t paid.
I look at him, assuming this is our last meal.
If I tell the sea, will she wash it away?
How lovely he is. Really, I mean it.
He must believe we are forever and ever.
I count the mouthfuls, the tiles on the floor.
His chair squeals when he leaves for the loo.
Written: 2018/19.
Explanation: A poem that was part of my MFA Creative Writing manuscript, in which I wrote poems about cities that have staged the Eurovision Song Contest, or taken the name of a song and written my own piece inspired by the title. I have received a mark for this body of work now, so am sharing the poems here.
