She told the story over a gin,
Eyes grey and miry,
Lips in a meniscus formation.
She went back again,
She'd heard the single vioin playing then,
And could still hear faint harmonics.
As they walked, withdrew, and then became just a story.
Three degrees apart, they met in autumn:
She once (and only once) thought it was two autumns too late.
Brought together by ticket stubs and someone else's mistakes,
Their brief encounter seemed as surreal as the films they saw.
Yet there were details that still felt so real.
Their lives weaved in and out awkwardly like
Inexperienced hands playing Bach's fugues for the first time-
Waiting, always waiting for the other voice to unfold.
They sat at arms-length,
But lay abreast,
Up steel stairs, in the morsels of light that were permitted through the broken venetians.
The crispness of morning air made it almost painful to breathe like she did walking to her car,
Wrapped in a white faux fur shawl and sour bourbon vapour.
It did not surprise her when it ended,
For it never quite began,
Not in a proper way.
There were three wrongs,
And in the end three separate ways.
She sometimes wondered about him,
Usually when she was having a gin and tonic.