Restaurant Scene Poem by Linda Hepner

The candle flickers on the restaurant table,
Shadows lie across the menu listing
Spicy rice and chutneys we are able
To taste in silence, both our eyes resisting
Intimacy we’ve bitten in our lips;
A lifetime’s truths and treason we must hide
As even candlelight can not eclipse
The light that conversation would provide.

Another couple nearby shamelessly
Gaze at eachother: he loquatious, talks
To hide his lustful motives; blamelessly
She listens, smiles as if agreeing, stalks
With creeping hand his careless fingers, seeming
As if she wasn’t waiting for his hot advance…
He strokes her patient palm and says that dreaming
Had not prepared him for this true romance.

We eavesdrop, voyeurs, as they unaware
Lighten our burdened hearts; released we smile
One to the other, as two colleagues share
A secret, and superior awhile
To all the world, we let ourselves direct
Our eyes to one another, surface glance
That we will feast on, greedily connect
A moment, then return to routine trance.

12.20.05