Let’s do Lunch …
Oh, where is it heading and where will it end?
Liaison of lovers or food with a friend?
I answered yes, please but my heart said no, thanks
As I suddenly saw myself swelling the ranks
Of the ladies who lunch with their Afternoon Men
Again and again and again and again
With rillettes of rabbit, or moules marinière
As the only connection between any pair.
Lunch isn’t dinner, which ends up in bed;
We part on a pavement with everything said
And you ring me up later but don’t talk for long
And I feel in my water it’s all going wrong.
There used to be music but not any more
So I know where I am and I’ve been here before,
A little bit tipsy, a little bit high
On the scent of the cheek that I’m kissing goodbye…
Old Spice… Aramis… Eau Sauvage… Vetiver –
First wind of the end of another affair.
*Ann Drysdale lives in South Wales. Of her four volumes of poetry from Peterloo, the most recent, Between Dryden and Duffy, appeared in 2005. A fifth, Quaintness and Other Offences, (including this poem) was published last year by Cinnamon Press.
