Triptych
The couple at a nearby table
discuss the drapes, tartan wallpaper
the pastiche highland paintings. She
barely smiles, he – a sorry picture
wearing the morning like a shabby coat.
I want to order them joy, quarry gems
from their rock faces. Instead
I study the doubtful sky
just as the silver-haired woman
carries her weekend valise to the boot of her car.
Last night she dined alone – silent as Swanson
she held a glass of red wine, savoured
each course – the biscuits and Brie Noir
followed by dessert, the maitre d’
timing his entrance like a Swiss watch.
Did my father notice? He leans over the white damask
to tell me how Picasso
having completed a master-piece
would lie in bed for a month smoking, dashing ash
to the floor contemplating his next composition. Oh
to be that remarkable in the Hotel de Savoie
during August in a room so large that the skylight fails
to illuminate the corners.
Breakfast arrives – an impressionist’s palette
set for a day somewhere along the coast, the sea
already brushing out the bay.
Kerry Darbishire, writer, songwriter and poet lives in a remote area of Cumbria. Mentored by Judy Brown in 2013, her poems have appeared in anthologies, magazines and won several competition prizes. A Lift of Wings 2014 published with Indigo Dreams. Kay’s Ark 2016 with Handstand Press.