Before

She looks like someone I’ve hugged recently

Stuttering around each other in the cab

Say stop?

He brings her fingers to a full stop.

'Stop'.

The grey wall says FATQ

It’s always her, breaks the slice

of time between them.

How you doing? Still here.

Her fuzzy blonde head sleeps like my own.

Her armpit has two creases.

His hair grows into his cheekbones.

They chatter into

the best community I could ever learn

Cobbled out into mis-matched chairs

And side-striped felines.

The most gorgeous staircase

Cannot compare to the slim curve of a cat.

They step in time to a curl of

burnt brown crackle, brass door-knobs.

Then we glory

into

brown floors/red walls/stacked books/tapestry/a white tagine

Messy? You think my apartment is messy?

Every replay I look like it’s the first time

Rewind to look behind their heads

One song - but quickly. Eggshell walls of crackled paint

Meubles?

They step in perfect symmetry, tread coral boards.

They know – hold this – they have sure feet.

She only has chamomile. I feel so caffeinated.

Red walls and crooked postcards

Piles of bedroom stack up in living space.

Dying light doesn’t mean rage is forgotten.

One’s about my cat, one’s about my ex-boyfriend

Play, the waltz.

Shadow of her bicep

Strings minor chord up to c major

One single night with you, little [insert name]

Eyelids lowered against a French ‘r’

Oil paintings butt against each other

like boats in rough harbours

Let me sing, you a waltz.

I saw a triangle in her back,

An oval between buttons of his shirt

You want some honey?

Choosing music in someone else’s house

Is a gift, an offering, a threat, so intimate.

Curl of wrought-iron shadows her hair

White plastic kettle is an oddity.

Wooden hat-boxes curve her jeans

Dancing like she guest-programmed his birth.

Suburban coffee-mug has jazz

and joy in aping Nina Simone.

The rage they spent before sunrise

spins out to where we stop living like teenagers.

I will live there, lounge on stripy couches

Pause to adore angles.

Baby.

Her hips know.

Let me sing you, a waltz.

She looks like someone I’ve hugged recently.

You are gonna miss that plane.

__________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from @greenspace01 ('sanctuary, worlds within worlds'), and @TheEndeavour ('rage in all its glorious forms'). Which I have teamed with my adoration of Julie Delpy's apartment in the film Before Sunset (and my adoration of Julie Delpy in general. Honestly, is there anything she can't do?)

I wrote this while watching (and re-watching) the final sequence in that wonderful film, starting as they get out of their taxi and arrive at her gorgeous French apartment. I go to that apartment in my head, all the time. You can go there too, if you like. I'll put the spare key on top of the door frame.