AN ALMOST PERFECT DATE
Before I meet you, late at night, I sit
in my car, smoke a cigarette. A feather,
white as a snowflake, falls on my dashboard,
as if an angel’s watching over me.
We eat in The Captain’s Wife, tender chicken.
Drink coke and fizzing lagers. Outside,
I tell you all about the Viking boat
that still waits for its owner on the isle
across the sea, like an amorous lover
of Abydos, opposite side of the strait.
And then we take a dim lit walk, our hands
touching like pilgrims’, avoiding puddles
that we imagine in the silent dark.
On a bench, beside the children’s play area,
we kiss, tentative tongues, my hand
lingering on your knee. ‘Do you think we
would make a good couple?’ I ask.
‘Yes. But I don’t want to rush things,’ you say.
Rushing into a relationship is alien
to you, and I realise my last mistake.
Instead of sulking, feeling rejected,
this conversation, exclusive, gives me hope.
We’re closer than ever, in just four weeks,
as I take you to Penarth, show you the beach
where I nearly died under a green cloud.
The sea air burns our nostrils. It feels warm
as I wrap my arms around your cardigan.
We’re silhouetted by a street lamp,
a beacon above the tireless waves.
We’ll take things slow, but I still know, that if
we can continue in this vein, you won’t
make me wait in vain. I’ll stay for you,
like the lonely Viking boat, your kisses
and your hands holding promise. You have
the touch of that angel, whose feather
fell before we had an almost perfect date.
