She's wearing glasses and sits behind glass,
    He's wearing gloves; blue eyes in a mask,
    The note: "I haz Gun?",  hastily written,
    Brown eyes meet blue eyes; the brown eyes are smitten.

    In the distance, The Sweeney, all tongs and hammer,
    She's fixing his spelling, correcting his grammar,
    He's expecting used fivers stuffed in a sack,
    But she writes down her number and slides the note back.

    Outside: The driver's impatiently waiting.
    Inside:  Wide open,  blue eyes dilating,
    Then he runs, glancing back, and he's out in the rain,
    From the display case, a sigh; she'll never see him again.

    But at the end of her shift and in less of a hurry,
    In a whistle with some flowers, he takes her out for a curry.

There was no quiet desperation
in the riotous years of youth,
the grasping search for love and truth.
No, in those days there was no patience
for the faintest scent of dull
routine or rut.  It's just with age
that comfort's found in gilded cage,
no fires to set, and belly full.

Should a technicolor sunrise
strike a quickened spark of phoenix
from the ash of youthful pyres,
hopeful drops for jaded eyes
which, once refreshed, will then be fixed
upon millennial birds of fire.