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David Weston

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Stranded

Hot night, the waterfront's reflected curve of lights,
the old men playing skat in cafés, chewing politics,
girls promenading arm-in-arm, taunted by teenage boys,
warm culinary draughts through rough taverna doors.

You dine on stuffed tomatoes, cheap retsina, crusty bread, 
the paper tablecloth stirs in the breeze and afterwards,
filled with a sweet self-pity, yearningly,
you linger by some postcards on a rack

then grow aware of ardent importuning eyes,
the dark red invitation of a mouth's wet cave,
harsh shadowplay upon the soft planes of her face;
you push aside the coaxing hand and flee.

Slowing at last, you wander aimlessly, relieved,
soon find yourself right at the unlit edge of town:
last buildings peter out, flat silvered water lapping where 
the road turns into sand along an empty beach.

Page(s) 17

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