Menage-a-trois

Lost in talk, we walk down the hill
towards a river of road.

The capsicum pot-plant holds its strange red fruit aloft
as you bear it awkwardly in your hands,
speaking of your wife, and how you owe her flowers.

Carting my own star-jasmine, tethered to a wooden stick,
and furtive dhania, to the car – we came separately –
I feel the raspberry cheesecake we just shared at the café above the nursery,
sit heavy in my stomach. like woe.

You wheel your car around
– and with a careful wave, drive off –
leaving me, hot-faced, heavy –
scrabbling to collect the coins that just fell out of my purse
into the gravel in the gutter.

Like a CD track that has gotten stuck
she plays out the old old song –
‘the girl at the window/
waited all day for her father to come home/
thought that if she flirted with him/
he might love her more.’

At the table beneath the spreading fig tree,
I let you see my black bra-strap slip
from behind my green-yoked dress.
Felt your glance stroke my hair,
as you told me about paying your bond (and hers).

Trading my beauty
for the brief feeling of being seen
is like letting myself be
Sampson
and you
and your wife, Delilah.

My strength,
shorn,
to a sorry pile of stones.

3.10