The city’s cold

The wind whips wildly down the alleyways and the avenues

The narrow streets are quite bleak in the falling night

 

The café’s quiet

The spy sits waiting for his rendezvous

In a Burberry coat he jots notes in code in a little book

 

Enter Cypher

She stands by the doorway

Framed in the moment of a hidden past

 

They cross outside

She ghosts him back to his hotel – it overlooks the Quai

The clouded sky seems liquid in the gelid moon

 

The room is small

The bed is wide

There’s an antique chair

And a cheval mirror with a finical golden frame

 

They lie together through the long night

Caught in the trace of a difficult lust that should’ve been better

 

SOLO

 

The air is charged in the frosted light of  a dappled dawn

Cypher lies awake

His hand heavy on her thigh

She gets up, gets ready as he lies asleep

With graceful ease she erases her trace from the room

 

She waits a moment by his pillow

Kisses him on the head

Then steals away

© Ian Lilburne 2019