Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Grand Cafe

This,
the setting for my
Brazilian soap opera:
The Grand Cafe,
High Street, Oxford.

I enter with two friends,
and after some waiting in line
find a table to sit at, at the incredibly full cafe.
(and who would've thought that it was so popular,
and that anyone who's anyone would be there that morning?)
The girls order sensible things
but I am too much under the weather
under the atmosphere
of the city, of the cafe,
of the chattering classes
to concentrate and so say yes,
and no at several points
through the litany of offers that the waitress is citing
and end up with
with some rye-bread, marmite and overcooked mushrooms.

I overhear conversation
from the table behind me
They're talking of archives, grants, deadlines
as I cut my bread into identical pieces,
and then wash a couple of morsels
down with the earl grey

(of course, earl grey,
which I've learned to drink with milk)

I fidget
while fighting the specters in my head and
knock a chair behind me
and disturb a couple's
symposium

They look at me
as at a mad-woman-
Yes, I have only escaped the attic this morning
to come to 'Real England'

The one with the speckled face
puts his spectacles on and let's me know
with a movement of the brow
(how is that even possible?)
that they are not amused.

'Love is blind',
my friends tell me, and pay the bill
Holding both my arms, they guide me
towards the door.