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Karen Green

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Force of habit

She sits on the deck of
the Grand Hotel,
St Jean de Luz.
It is the first Monday
of the high high season,
there is a heat haze but no
sun and no promised view
of mountain from the room.

Later they will walk around
the town, traverse the
Market's marble hall admiring
mussels, pale pink rougets,
encrusted ancient-looking
oysters, serrated, ridged and
seaweedy, difficult to tear
their eyes away.

Then through the walkways in
the August heat, approving
food shops, pharmacies, a florist
- the French do these so well.
Yesterday there must have been
a wedding in the square, the ground
is spattered with confetti, pointillised
in crude pastels, blemishes.

Press on with driven shopping,
scan sale signs automatically, finger
trinkets they don't need or even want,
think yet again to stop at a cafè
or restaurant and seek to gratify
the tired palate, tempt limp appetite,
but you can only eat so many times
a day. After that it's foie gras.

 

Page(s) 58

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