Devotion: 4. Impromptu Evening

Shed these bedclothes! Pull apart
the dirty cream curtains! We spill
out beneath a bald, dimming sky
in search of an affordable meal.
We talk on the embankment walk.
The year has been unforgiving.
The songbirds have not yet
returned to the hedge outside.

I spread a red pepper tapenade
over the tiger bread, masticating
like a tiger. Some napa slaw lipsticks
your mouth. I motion, you wipe.
You daub some herb oil on bread,
eat, your eyes widen, then wrinkle.
Were I to die before morning
this would have been enough.