Baguettes at Dawn (I.P.)

Sleep won’t come,
so stroll down the cafe
on the front...watch
seagulls strut their stuff –
deckchairs and windbreaks
thrust to the ruffle of the rain,
and thrum of the wind.

A bedraggled mutt
slips its mooring
outside the chip-shop
and inside – a pumpkin faced
pooch morphs into a heap
at my feet

and then she breezes in –
precise and fine as the line
of my italic pen... gestures –
may she sit here, please.

With a shrug I pull out
a chair as she toys
with a spoon in her cup –
a coffee, black as the moons
beneath her eyes,
misted with tears.

Was she right, she said,
meeting her ex like this...
or at least, he would be
in ten minutes time?
‘A gigolo’, she called him,
(her words not mine)
but she still loved him –
self-confessed fool
that she was.

I attempt to look wise
twixt bites of my egg
and cress baguette,
and consider it best,
to say I must shoot off...
And at any rate

it was all down to her...
not people like me
who write poetry,
and are ever seeking
that profound
and perfect end;
overrated things –
words.