Ed Garvey Long

                        I look up from my muesli

                        and Jane Austen’s in my kitchen,

                        red-cheeked from dancing and 

                        tiny like a museum mannequin. 

                        She comes to join me at the table,

                        doesn’t say a word, smiling warmly

                        like we share a funny truth.

                        I don’t say a word either –

                        what would she make of my accent? 

                        She looks around bewildered but 

                        taking it all in her stride. Maybe she 

                        often falls out of time to join 

                        gay men eating their muesli?

                        We look at each other awkwardly again 

                        with beaming smiles and a sense of 

                        when is this going to end? 

                        She goes to speak, looking at me directly,

                        but she fades out,

                        and then she's gone.