The Poetry Society

Reaching the restaurant late

I find the empty shells

Of your gloves on the cold kerb:

Stretchy, crushed red velvet

Which slithered off your lap

To float in the sodium stream.

What could they mean, except

You have arrived before me,

And simply taken your place?

The things we forget, or lose,

Live in a heaven of debris,

Waiting for us to collect them;

Already your naked hands

Are fluttering over the table,

Missing they don't know what.