I want to talk to you,

just like

we did in old times

over a beer, over the background music

in which we catch ourselves smiling

at each other, shyly as children,

hormones unwilling to commit

as adults.

I want that beer to turn to three or four,

a session in a pub garden in the middle

of an Oxfordshire abyss or quiet literary desert;

let that beer sink, dregs drained

another one ready at the bar…

…I miss the gap in the silence

of comfortable reproach, when you