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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Victoria Field

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Penzance

Only one table is taken in the Exchange Café-
three women with angular hair talk about Art.

Outside the town is cold and murky, granite-grey -
inside this temple of sheet glass

all is warm and precise, my circular table
shines like a black moon, its craters botoxed.

I read the signs along the small street
retreating from this shock of the new -

Maritas Hair and Beauty has both Ladies Salon
and a Gents, the Cycle Centre Stocks Bikes

For All Ages. A glossy waiter brings me
inky coffee, milk in a white jug, luminous,

Morandi-perfect. The cafe outside offers handwritten
Breakfast's in various combinations. Here, in all

this air and space I’m hungry for something.
The waiter smiles his bright smile and brings

without my asking, in a something not quite
a spoon, not quite a dish, beautifully ambiguous,

(those women would know what to call it)
chocolate beans that melt, bitter and sweet on my tongue.

 

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