In the Café
Did anybody actually (most of all, me)
think I could write here?
At a trestle table, notebook
blotting crumbs (fast hardening to glue),
leftovers of a cartoon transfer,
vermilion-tipped cactus
tramping down the radio.
Heat on the window
baking my face like a biscuit.
I move some hair, look over
at moss and narcissi, in a pot –
but that’s where the first date is
and he’s talking quite a lot.
I only look up to swallow some froth –
at a banner of balloons, so proud of you.
Left to the weather’s devices, outside chairs
burn blue and orange, dripping
gull-shaped finger paint.
Mottled old sea, unravelling
another row of knitting.
She won’t want
the television off.
I won’t want to say
I’ve been here
without her.
There’ll be a sort of silence,
with words pulsing
under every inch of skin.
Carolyn Oulton‘s poetry has been published in magazines including: Acumen, Artemis, Dream Catcher, The Frogmore Papers, Ink Sweat & Tears, Obsessed With Pipework, Orbis, Poetry Village, The Moth and Stand. Carolyn’s most recent collection Accidental Fruit is published by Worple Press.