The sun streams through the glass

as if trying to set the paper doilies

on our wooden bench

alight or at least spark into life

the broadsheet news that lays between us

and the sway of information,

the language barrier breaking down,

between the forties and the roaring

twenty-something who between them

understand that love is not

an emotion that signifies sex.

 

The sound of belly-ache

laugh ripples untidily

across the rip tide of tea

and the thought of cinema

going on overhead;

a mystery of noir,

the love story of no beginning,

she whispers

you were in love with her once,

I answered,

I loved you and still do.

 

Ian D. Hall 2016