The Curious Case Of Sunday February Eighth

It’s just this side of midnight
when I climb into bed, alone,
and reach across to extinguish the side-light.
I can still smell her cigarette smoke in my hair.
I can still taste the cinnamon chewing stick on my gums.
On the cinema screen, I can still see the film unwinding.
Bradley Pitt is ageing in reverse; thanks to the prosthetics and the VFX.
We’re buying popcorn. We’re walking past the Royal Opera House.
We’re standing outside the Mexican restaurant in the rain.
Across the table in the coffeehouse, I can’t be sure,
but there’s a moment of stillness, when it feels like
she wants to lean across, cup my face in her hands,
and kiss me, slowly, whilst keeping her eyes closed.
Just like I want to lean across and slowly kiss her too.
I'm walking across Regent’s Park counting surviving snowmen.
I'm making breakfast still wearing last night’s nail-varnish.
I'm waking up, alone, 68 years after Francis Scott Fitzgerald
died from a heart attack, in the living-room
of his mistress's first floor apartment,
whilst waiting for the doctor to arrive.
Head still hazy from the blended Scotch whiskey.
The jazz age no more than a fading tubercolic memory.

'The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button' by F. Scott Fitzgerald