OUTDOOR CAFÉ, BIARRITZ

At breakfast they are rather quiet,
Saying more with brief glances than words.
When there are words, they are hers,
And he listens with his eyes,
Leans closer, touches her hand,
And she his as he lights her cigarette.

He has perhaps heard all this before;
No weddings rings, but an intimacy
That is comfortable, not yet well-worn
By too many years and honest betrayals.
He does not smoke, but there is smoky
Seduction in the way he smiles and
Drops his eyes at something she says.

At dinner they will lean across candles
And wine glasses, their food forgotten,
Growing cold as their touches simmer,
As she whispers, and he listens . . .
The waiter leaving them to their passion.


IN A PARK, SAO PAULO

So young . . . and so obviously their first love,
When every moment is achingly sexual,
Every touch is tentative foreplay in learning
The passion they cannot imagine diminishing;
Their shyness and limitations melting away
In the heat of their desperate entwining.

If there are seasons to love being learned
They are Spring, beautiful in their becoming
And blooming in the newness of their desire.
If they have not yet made love, they soon will,
And the thought makes my own passion rise.