She said her name was Penelope

She said her name was Penelope

and she was Sobranies
and Bombay Sapphire gin;
torn – strategically ripped
jeans...sexy, as artists are
except, she’d only fuck
with the lights out.

We met by the Taj Mahal.
I was selling roses
for my sins; our first kiss –
in a shop doorway, dodging
the rain. First date – an hour
late...on the brink
of the rest of our lives,
lost for words – neither
knowing what to say.

‘Hope you’re not
the clingy kind,’ she says.
‘No, of course not,’ I say –
devastated and elated,
both at the same time.
Watch the rain
trickle down her neck,
and I shiver.

She up-sticks and moves
to Chelsea, London,
of shabby-chic, boho
persuasions. ‘Come,
visit me,’ and I did.

On the balcony
she stretches out her arms
like she created all this;
offers me the view
as if it were a plate
of homemade canapés
while topping up
her ‘gin and it’.

‘Cities are all forgiving,’
she says. ‘You can lose
yourself. It suits me fine.
I can do whatever I like.'
‘It’s true,’ I reply,
‘You can have anything
you want...for a price.’

A Stella McCartney number
strewn on her bedroom floor...
and I know it’s all over –
soon as she looks at me.
I can see the London Eye
from her window – early,
Sunday morning...a beacon
of our time, burning bright,
ever brighter.