Only Party Talk?
A love pome.
Renoir was not best pleased
With a dull patch in the canvas
When he painted the gaiety
Au Moulin de la Galette.
He touched up the spot
With a dancing couple
A man in stripey trousers
And a woman in pink.
The man was a painter,
Solares to his friends.
His partner, Margot, a model,
Was everybody’s friend.
A century later
Reincarnated as Mary and Larry
They met now and then
In bars and parties
Where their eyes would meet
They’d nod, and look away.
They had no memory
Of Sunday polkas
Au Moulin de la Galette
But shared a veiled affinity.
The party throbbed
With chiselled energy,
Larry toyed with a glass of vino
Wishing he had stayed at home.
“Is this seat taken?”
“It’s yours if you want.”
Mary wore a demure
Black velvet dress
And the amber necklace.
That she spotted Larry posting
With a Valentine heart-stone,
Inscribed, “I adore you.”
Mary ran her fingers along the beads
Teasing the answer
To a haunting mystery
A memory of something
From somewhere before
From some time before
Before there was a before
And Larry was in there somewhere.
“Will you dance with me, Larry?”
Larry was no dancer.
However
If they took the floor
He could hold her hand
Admire her elfin beauty
And for a moment of eternity
Feast on fond imaginings.
They danced.
One Merlot beyond discretion
Larry tried to say, “I love you.”
His nervous tongue betrayed him,
“I love… your necklace.”
He wanted to whisper,
“Hold out your hands
I will pluck out my heart for you.”
But was one glass shy of effusion.
Gripped by an irrational impulse
Mary stretched her arms
Offering her hands as a grail
Willing Larry to place there
His ‘plucked-out’ heart.
She folded her hands
Clasping his heart
Gently like a wounded bird.
Their eyes locked together
The world had changed
Without a word.
‘Larry adores me?’
‘Mary loves me?’
“Come for tea, Honey,
One afternoon soon?
I’ll have to check my diary.”
A goodnight kiss
Two solitary midnight walks
Two souls waiting by the phone.
© coolhermit 2023
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