A Pachyderm In The Restaurant (Part One) Poem by Andy Brookes

Hexameters, hexed metres, metered matter menaced.
Lunch was strained affair like kids food pureed and bland,
we talked of this and that while the elephant in the room
ran riot royally.

You having one too many, me sipping mineral water
you changed yours into wine, whilst whining about life's bitchery
and the elephant grew bigger
because............?

well you know why as you downed another
me picking at my salad appetite suppressed
feeling rather undressed turning the lettuce red
and the elephant was now so large it squashed the breath out of us.

Well nice seeing you, you said, knocking back the last of your gin
the ice tinkled in the glass making a Titanic mess as we hit the ice-burg
you walked wobbling away, me offering to pay as always.

while you poured yourself into a taxi blowing kisses.
we both left those pointed razor sharp things unsaid but it was there in the gaps of conversation.
the elephant shrank and I put him in my pocket for another day,
walking home to ponder what we got from each others
friendship except pain.