In the Cafe

©  Steve King

All rights reserved

That night you chanced upon the old café,

I recalled times we had so long ago.

Not  just the words, nor how we sounded then,

but in the way our eyes would speak for us

to top the clamor, and the way our smiles

at once would satisfy each hidden care.

The while you spoke, I pored over your face.

I saw the things the years worked to deny:

youth, innocence and infatuation,

wrapped in the folds of some fine elegance;

a legacy that showed your gaze, your smile,

framed just the way an artist might have done

to hold it for my ideal vision.

I needed but a curve, a shadowed line,

one turn, one scent, to seize the whole again.

When you had gone, your space was resonant,

grace notes alive to theme old worlds anew.

I took your picture, needlessly, I know,

for I will never look to you that way:

that image would not so deny the years—

cast by the bottled light on plastic screen,

recording but a shape, without your forms;

hard vestiges that point to your old griefs,

the changes you accrued in long absence,

the weight of secrets never meant for me,

and gladnesses that I shall never see.

These speak not to the pleasures in my eyes,

that choose to find only what could not be;

nor to the hold of ancient promisings,

and old sirens that sang too long to me.

This week’s post for Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/

and The dVerse Pub OLN on Tuesday

http://dversepoets.com/