Where I am enclaved

wasting this Holy Thursday
devouring Ian Gibson’s Lorca,
a pasta-twirl
or a
Parma-ham pizza
With its ripe polished olive at the centre of everything.

EVERYONE KNOWS
PINCUS ROSE

FOR SMARTEST CLOTHES

Ian Gibson? Pincus Rose? Lorca?
Who decides on the name of a gas
or the Sea Of Tranquillity?

His voice is so deep it provided the lining for his shoes.

*

Where else could one discuss

rare groove,
the etymology of ‘by Jove’
or the prose style of Contre Sainte-Beuve
with the waiter’s face and jacket as white as coral?

I am wondering if he will guess the name
of the man in the ‘loose author’s tie’
who defied authorities’ noose
and found his own Gethsemane

in an olive-grove

when a Rasta-girl
breaks from the impatient queue with a view to
my pizza’s black-hole, my cappuccino’s Saturn-ring.

‘Do you mind if I step into your grave?’