Walking on Queensberry Street
one Saturday night
we find a single red rose:
longstemmed, cellophaned,
perfect. I pick it up
in my black-gloved hand.
If you’d been anyone
but you
I’d have said ‘For you sir’
with a flirty bow and a smile,
with a
performance.
We discuss how it might have got there
and take it, reluctantly, to give to Zoe
for her birthday.
I am blissfully can-kickin’ happy
just walking with you
through the streetlit night
Two stray poets with nothin’ but words
Walking with you
through the empty night
with my gloves on my hands.