Five-Star Opulence Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

In this restaurant décor
leaves nothing to chance.

One enters through the heavy brass-knobbed door
into a world of unfettered elegance
(brass bowls gleaming like burnished gold
amidst shimmering silver of knives and spoons and forks)

steps over the magical threshold
into plush twilight blue where, long-legged as storks,
slim-waisted waiters weave amongst the low
murmuring ripples of genteel sound
loud enough to drown out the urgent ebb and flow
of the outside world throbbing like an open wound.