There is a man wearing shorts, holding a large multi-coloured golf umbrella.
I watch him out the window of the cafe, the cafe that plays the terrible music, terrible loud.
The man behind the counter sings along to the adverts, not the songs in-between
And outside the rain pours and pours in incredible streams,
Covering the tennis courts in an uninvited summer reservoir
As the sailing boat, all sails tucked away,
Rolls incredulously under the rain and the thunder
Claps cut through the air
And you smile, leaning back in your plastic chair
As we clink chipped mugs full of tea,
You admit to infidelities, one two and three
(The numbers rise as the rain adds to the sea).

The man alone at a table behind sits huddled over his tea,
Hi-vis jacket gleaming under its own coat of work-hard dirt.
The little boy behind you clutches his spoon mid-way down the handle, as if it belongs to a giant, and gobbles his pudding as if it belongs to another who might return to reclaim it at any moment.
His mum peers intently out of the window, as if she is willing the rain to wash something unwanted away outside.
And you ask me to give you ultimatums and deadlines and ask me to tell you to leave by December as June only just trickles into view beneath the storm clouds.

And I say, okay, you have six months and I’ll wait for you

If I can
But I won’t make any guarantees;
Same as the nothing you’re offering me.

I watch the advert-singer bringing the garden chairs inside to drip dry.
I’m tired of you going home to better things, of me being left outside, getting cold and rusty in the rain.
I wish we weren’t the underminers, making the undermined. 

Earlier, in the sunshine, we told each other sweet stories about the sea and the seashells.
We touched finger tips.
And although we stood too close

We keep falling apart.

Every time we say “goodbye”, every time,
We go back to different doors and I hold a different key and you, a different ring.

So we played on the sand until the sea moved in and the sky drew down curtains of hot heavy darkness
And the final act was all melodrama and thunder and rain that seemed to spell the end of the world.

And as all the fuses blew, up in the sky
I felt the sorrow in my stomach up and twist and lock me into a place I don’t want to be.

I know that you don’t believe that this is “goodbye” (the same as we’ve said so many times);
You don’t believe me, but I’m saying it;
Please can’t we turn in? Fold? Let’s fall in with the broken sky.

© 2013 Rosie Escott