Hello My Lovely! Poem by Dónall Dempsey

Eager to see me
off
you dash to
the window

dressed in nothing
to blow me a kiss
the sweeping gesture of which

knocks a
pot of pansies
off
which would have knocked
my head of

if I hadn’t stopped
to tie the lace of my right shoe.
The beautiful glazed
Cretan ceramic pot

(of that long hot summer holiday never to be forgot)
exploding before my
very eyes
as a frightened pansy
tries to abandon ship

and leaps on to the tip
of my right shoe
its roots embedded
in my fingertips.

Now, I’m not so sure
whether when you said
you wanted to see me off
that
you wanted to see me off...

And that watching Double Indemnity
late into the night in flickering black and white
that you
maybe had a secret lover

and the insurance would come in handy and
what looked like an accident was really a plan and
only your weeping nakedness
clasped about my person

in the middle of the bustle of the street
and the milkman’s whistle
comforted me
reassured me.

And I carried you
like the end of a movie
back up the steep stairs
as if you were
a naked bride

being carried surreally
across the threshold
back into the dream.
And where was that swelling orchestra coming from?
Frankly my dear…I didn’t give a damn!
I did what any guy would do
in my position
and with a dame like you

I reached for the phone
and called in
sick.