Risotto creams in my stomach, making me a paperweight.

Mushrooms seem eternal, don’t they? 

The kind of beings that will outlast heaven. 

Looking at you I remember how I felt 

the moment before going down a big red slide at indoor play. 

I feel this too in my toes, watching your hands -

oh god your hands - around your fork, 

picking at pâté and brie, or something pickled. 

We are warm creatures, reaching for each other in the day.

I can’t tell if the passers-by can see us, 

your hair caramelised in the threatening glow of evening. 

I wish we lived as shadows and were everywhere at once. 

I wish you were a sunbeam I could bathe in. 

If we were the pigeons sneaking under the tables

I would forgo my share to hear you cooing,

to see the way your wings fold as you eat.