M is for … mmmmmm
THERE is a lot that makes you go mmmmmm.
You can’t help it.
Blue night moon rise, stars shadow brown eyes.
Pink slinks across the sky. Ah.
There’s oily water, with people in it, splashing or floating about.
The round ripples grow, bob, fade.
The life of ripples is short. Even in the Kalloni Gulf.
They sink without a sound, embrace deep eternity; they melt into the warm depths then disappear.
Forever.
You’d never know they’d lived, if you hadn’t seen them.
She orders for you, in Greek.
What’s going on?
It’s those things you like, she says.
Come.
You limp across the wet tiles to choose your fish.
Your toe hurts, the big one on the left foot.
A brick smashed into it – a huge brick — from a dizzy height. It split the skin, and bruised or broke the bone.
You don’t know.
The music is loud. Some men are swirling around broken plates, bending forward.
Their arms wave in their air behind them.
Octopus arms it seems, floating in a sea of culture.
Some lovers, in the distance, they face each other.
Their big stomachs touch as they stand, feet secured in the sand.
You can hear their hearts aflutter, you feel their lips burst with promise.
Gosh, there’s the arrow of desire aiming for a kiss.
The meal is tasty and plentiful, shared.
The fresh oysters (that’s what you like, she knows) they wince when you squirt lemon juice on them.
Little oysters in scallop shells, the shells you collect.
You want to put them on the wooden window frames you two found at the stinky rubbish bins, beautiful in the sunset of a Sunday.
She encourages you to be creative.
And you like that.
Today your toe is sore, and you feel tired.
You want to lie down.
The cleaner must come so you can rest on your pillow and know.
Love can last forever in a memory.
(ends)