That’s What He Does

Her lateness was a common occurrence
often due to her fondness of
watching El Nino, a trashy daytime soap,
so fixated on the raging personalities and inclement plot lines
that she'd forget they were supposed to meet and have dinner.

Tonight’s dinner however was a special event,
a toothsome sampling of four courses,
a leafy starter, an ice cold sorbet to cleanse taste buds,
followed by the speciality roasted lamb dish and
topped off
with a summer berry sundae.

He'd been waiting so long that
his hunger had eroded everything which made him
a man.

Did she not care?

Checking his watch every few minutes had begun to tire him.
Lifting such a heavy weighted, plated watch
can be exhausting
when all you have to sustain you
is your fading hope and stubbed out dreams,
dreams stubbed out like the centrepiece candle was
when the waiter licked both of his stubby fingers
and
pinched the flame out of existence.

That’s What He Does

He refused to budge,
not out of stubbornness like some thought,
they who whispered behind their glass shaped shields or
covered hands but
because he believed in her,
believed she would come through for him.

He knocked the salt and pepper over,
two fallen pots,
seasoning flung all over the laced tablecloth,
a splatter of sodium that
conjured a crude image of starry skies,
and on the largest grain he made a wish,
then opened his auspicious eyes...