Rodney Purvis: Poetess Meets Poet

Poetess Meets Poet 

They met as I recall,

At one of the better gatherings of the arty set.

The pictures on the wall

Were fair to middling; shiraz flowed, champagne was bubbling. Stuffed olives circulated on a platter.

And as at all such happenings after the speeches,

Art went second fiddling.

The pictures ceased to matter:

Obscured beyond the cigarette smoke and the social chatter.

The next day for three hours,

They passed their souls’ calligraphy

Across the table of an eating house in Gertrude Street—

For prearranged they’d brought their recent work.

Here, small bright coloured cups

Of coffee in the Macedonian style

Clinked upon the marble table-tops.

They sipped liqueurs, clear, viscous and astringent

That left their fingers sticky, and the sun

Striking the glasses’ finger-printed sides,

Spun spectrums through the smears and globules.

Cigarettes spilled amongst the manuscripts.

They were fanatic in each other’s praise.

In minutes they’d confirmed what they already knew

About each other; their common bond was poetry.

Poetess had found Dionysian brother: he,

A sister sufferer

Of the same ecstasy

Rodney Purvis