Outside the Hewitt, June

There's something about they way
your top lip plays with the bottom,
and they curve up slightly at the side
when you're about to speak,
like a sort of smirk,
like you might not mean what you say.

And even if you don't, it'll still not matter
that it's cold and wet in the middle of June
and I'll still be glad that I came out tonight,
to see old faces and meet new ones.

Your height makes you look up
at me to talk
and gives you a look like you think
I might not mean what I'm saying
in our discussion, which led to an argument
about how my blue T-shirt didn't like you one bit,
but the rest of me did,
quite a bit
quite a lot.

And among the gloomy moments of standing
outside the pub in the cold
and me not even a smoker,
your laughter and smile
were a sparkle that cleared
a pocket in the night
and left us standing, like we were on Rainbow Road,
with you talking about how Bjork
was like two scoops of ice-cream
and I wonderfully won our argument
by telling you that your phone
was about to fall out of your pocket:
Erdinger Dunkle can do that for people.

And all I didn't tell you was how I was glad
that I had come out on this december June night
and met you standing
smoking badly rolled roll-ups
in the rain outside the Hewitt.