Breakfast Orders - Diane Scantlebury

Across the small hotel table they sit
An invisible barrier of quietness between them,
Not even an upward glance or look
Or civil word as the day awakens,
Silence only broken as their breakfast orders are taken,

How they grumble to themselves
As they wait, but not to each other,
Nor any contact do they make,
Their bodies leaning perilously like trees being felled
While they wonder how long their eggs and bacon will take,

Long years together have dulled their intimate life,
He has a smile for the pretty, young waitress
But none for his wife,
Who pretends not to notice as she twists the gold band
On the gnarled third finger of her sun wrinkled left hand,

Irritation with each other heightens
With every rustle and turn of his newspaper page,
Their breakfast order seems to be taking an interminable age,
Too long in each other’s company to be tethered
Too tenuous the bonds of the vows that bind them forever.

Diane Scantlebury