She plays every Saturday
in this cliff top cafe – 
Beethoven, Mozart,
depending on the weather.

He sits by the window
watching the sea
and feeling the sweep of the notes

as her fingers glide,
fluid as the waves,
clean as a gull’s sheer flight to the horizon.
 
He trails in her wake –
displaced a little more
each time,

trailing with the last resonance –
falling in a way
he doesn’t yet know the name for

and all the while her fingers place notes
closer, white against a black shore,
to the brink of him 
and beyond.

© Jo Swingler 2009