Courtly Love Banquet #1

When you appear at the breakfast bar,
carefully cradling your dawn-gathered melons;
well, it puts my toasted oats and plum compote
totally in the shade...

We share a lunch (half-) hour.
We repair to the city square
and play Scotch egg bowls
with a mint imperial jack.
I could stay here all day -
I'm sure I wouldn't be missed.
But the library is calling you back
(only very quietly, as per the rules).

We arrange to meet for supper
at the Alsatian & Taser bistro.
I spend the rest of the afternoon rattling around
like loose haggis denuded of skin,
while you float around the Dewey Decimal System
like an exquisite wingèd marshmallow.

The meal is less than magnificent.
The food is bland and the service indifferent.
You're still peckish in the taxi home,
so you rummage in my trouser pocket.

Yes guvnor, I know what love is!
It's a force that frazzles and bedazzles.
It's an enchantment and a curse.
It's giving your girl not only your last Rolo
but also the second-to-last
and sometimes even the first.

B.R. 13/12/2014