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Carole Satyamurti

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I'd So Much Rather

be eating this tarte tatin
than be her
with her Audrey Tatou eyes that might
crinkle into tears or smiles
but don't quite, as she stares
intense, almost wordless

at him
shuffling on his chair, out-gazed,
chain-lighting Gitanes,
forced by embarrassment
into broken sentences
in this encounter on the edge of being
the end or perhaps the start of something –

the station buffet greasy
with hundreds of past
meetings...departures...
that for this woman, who's been here before,
for this man,
reduce to a worn half dozen possible
highs, troughs, bunglings of love,
inescapable scripts of themselves

that surely, though, could be a rewrite this time
as, now, he rests his hand on the table,
as she strokes it lightly, slowly,
as his feet, invisible to her,
say it all.

I really would.

 

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