At Eight

Good food, good company, a smile that sets eyes to music and afternoon slowly, gracefully fell away to evening. Eventually it was time to return to the litter of socks and buveera scattered all over my floor, the evidence of my act squandering all its opportunities of getting together.

 

But outside the café night had opened. There was thunder, and lightning; rain in rapid shards flashed through headlights. The easiest thing would be to surrender to warm desires, the hearth, and give up the night to entwining fingers, but life calls. Life demands. The socks, the kettle, the ironing board. The alarm clock.

 

A brief walk to the cab under a shared umbrella, a very bad joke about Rihanna's song that was as hilarious as it was awful, and I wondered for two seconds whether it bothered the cab driver very much when couples made out in his back seat.

 

Finally goodnight.

 

Not finally. She lingers and remains, in the tips of my fingers, until the next cup of coffee.