At A Water Marked Table I Sit At In Memory

Albatross it was. Or was it a Seagull? Some festering

burden flitting about the dark oak rafters of the quasi-vintage

cottage, made quaint breakfast nook, your mother recommended for maple

donuts & baked Brie omelettes. We drank our coffee — black —

evading the crux of the matter, teetering between truth & sliced

fruits. The soft crunch of sourdough, the feathered knocking on stained

glass, suspended the cumbrous silence we shared like a side dish.

He was caught in a hard place. Wings squeezed by the aperture

in the roof put off from patching; probably plopped in to rest from rain

just to be jammed in by Jesus and dripping planks. It was kindness

killing us & kindness that would liberate the bird from squalor. Somehow

letting go was as dolorous as the sea-fowl mewing — its narrow wings

maimed by the timber fissure overhead our love funeral & the creamer cups

neatly stacked pyramidically. Fiddling with bitter-sweet accompaniments:

orange marmalade, wood stirrers & the half empty water glass

perspiring between us in the stiff, enclosed air. You & I

quibbled about the bill. Both of us compensating for out flash-pan

romance we consented to end before it began. Before honeycomb turned

sap, before wishing broken eggs could be pieced back, before your travel

toothbrush found its way to mine & two t-shirts became a drawer. Before

us negotiating this one last grace as reparations for wrong time & place...

Vagabonds: two escapists on the run from head to heart, committed to

wasting time, our togetherness purely coincidence. Only crumbles &

X-shaped silverware remained — marking the spot where almost lovers lie.

Yesterday we made green. Now, at the break of day, all is yellow & blue.

Zest fading from me & you & the oceanic-eagle hanging around our necks.