So … while he sat with you
breaking breadsticks and sipping mint tea

Watching the waiters
running to and fro, trying genuinely
to mollify your grand and colorful hauteur

Pondering the cabalistic
aspects of you stretched out as
a buttery patina on social deportment-

Were you attempting to provoke
something in his questioning mind to
show him the heart of what was missing?

All as you both savored shashlik
and drank the sweet Sarafin, and the
dark Corvus, laughing together like

Life simmering slowly in a savory sauce,
and both of you blowing gently at the candle smoke
drifting lazily in the short universe that separated you,

Pretending to be who you thought you’d both
become - chivalrous and plainspoken - demure
and aesthetical - consecrated and longsuffering-

How difficult it was for him trying to analyze
your colorful foibles like some canonized-cornetist
trying to interpret the ‘Buglers Holiday’

But he tried… So much so

that he became a broken-record
only to prove that his heart was sincere
and that he wanted more for both of you,

But still you chose to titter flippantly throughout
the evening, dangling your heels dangerously on your
toes, and throwing your hair about like a windblown sail,

All while the waiters bustled to and fro,
trying truly to conciliate your grand and colorful hauteur
to preserve the tips they knew only he would give them
       richardlloydcederberg.com