When Carrie met Harry
I think this has been here before but it has been savagely edited – so not quite the same pome as was.
Renoir was not happy with
his painting of the gaiety,
Au Moulin de la Galette,
a dull patch needed fixing.
He rescued the spot
with a man in stripy trousers
and a woman in pink
dancing.
The man was an artist,
Solares to his friends.
His partner, Margot, a model,
was everybody’s friend.
A hundred years later,
reborn as Carrie and Harry,
they had no memory
of wild polka Sundays
Au Moulin de la Galette.
If their paths crossed
in parties or bars
their eyes lingered
a moment and a half
then looked away.
Carrie wondered about Harry,
occasionally.
Harry was besotted with Carrie,
but privately.
The party was raucous,
throbbing with chiselled energy,
Harry toyed with a glass of merlot,
thinking he should have stayed home.
Carrie wore a black velvet dress
and the amber necklace.
that Harry posted anonymously
on Valentine’s Day
with a card, “I adore you,”
a month or so before.
“Is this seat taken?”
Harry’s heart bounced
then calmed.
He gestured carelessly,
“It’s yours if you want it.”
They talked, they laughed,
had another glass
then another.
Carrie sensed the stirring of
a vague ‘something’
from ‘somewhere’ before,
from some time before
there was a before,
and Harry was somehow in the mix.
She finger-tipped the necklace,
“Will you dance, Harry?”
Harry was no dancer,
if they danced though
he could hold her hand,
admire her elfin beauty
and for a minute or two
feast on fond imaginings.
They danced.
One merlot beyond discretion,
Harry started to say, “I love you,”
but his nervous tongue betrayed him,
“I love… your necklace.”
He wanted to whisper,
“Let me give you my heart,”
but was one glass shy of effusion.
The party faded into the distance,
the room became a shrine
as a hush domed the couple.
Carrie stretched her arms,
cupping her hands as a grail.
Harry ‘took out’ his heart.
Her hands enfolded the token
like a wounded bird.
Their world had changed.
without a word.
‘Harry adores me?’
‘Carrie likes me?’
“Come for tea, Honey? Soon?”
“I’ll check my diary.”
A goodnight kiss
Two solitary midnight walks
Two souls waiting for a call.
© coolhermit 2023
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