Delicately Unruffled In Tempo Poem by Mark Heathcote

Let me propose to take you for a walk.
We will tiptoe through a spring meadow
and together, we will gather wildflowers
and tread delicately unruffled in tempo
and I shall interject some silly talk
to which you'll laugh in short outbursts
fingers interlinked, our palms now sweaty
with each step, we're more candidly friendly.

I will watch the hem of your dress swish
it shall serpentine the grass like an adder
like a small cyclone with no fixed abode
somewhere on that course like a cadaver
it will rest like the tail of a panting catfish,
and I'll dislodge a barded hook and decode
whether or not you love me. Or me you
or-if-whether-or-not it's time to say adieu.