LA restaurant - Tuesday night
summer magic moon
with the sizzle and shine
of sun-dried tomatoes and olive oil
poured warm over pasta

and my new friend -
a Viking Goddess
who has stepped from the giant screen
of my favorite film
to the seat across the table
face aglow from a dancing candle

Her beauty; surreal
Her intelligence; haunting
Her lips; perfection

Her life; A weathered cardboard box from which,
one by one, she pulled out the key events of her past
without hesitation
and placed them on the table,
for my review

...her first film
...the dinner table with a very eclectic family
...the last walk she took before leaving her first husband

She opened up a vein
and let her humanness spill across the table
with a startling candor
speaking about it all
with a third-party detachment
like she were recalling excerpts from a novel...
but still, dutifully reporting

And I listened with a studious attentiveness
honored to be her exorcist
ingesting her every word
like bites of spaghetti
and watching,
always watching
those most beautiful lips,
full and thick -
I kept wondering how they would feel against mine...
All night

Later...
I was back from the head to see that the check had arrived,
obscured by crumpled bills
in a small black trey.
She was fumbling through her pocketbook,
seemingly short on cash...
but ready to pay -

"Do you by chance happen to have any money with you?"
she asked with a tone of non-expectancy,
like that of a 15th-century queen
posing a rhetorical question
to the court jester...
It was the sweetest, most unassuming gesture

I smiled, lit up from her naiveté,
pulled her tattered money from the trey,
handed it back to her and said,
"Yes, I do" and "No, you shouldn't.
I'll take care of this."

A surprisingly large but very feminine hand,
with long, spiraling fingers cupped like a small basket,
accepted the bills, then spilled them all haphazardly back into her purse
like she were depositing old coupons
into the trash

We were both standing at the table by now.
"You're lovely," is what I told her as I picked three 20's from my wallet.
She looked as if she didn't make out what I said.
"You know it?" I asked.
"'You're lovely' is what I heard."
I nodded.
She seemed surprised,
like she had never been told that before....
exposing a childlike delight

Then, at once, she eased forward,
the warmth of her body spilled over me,
her face in a bee line for mine
and then...
those lips;
soft, full, spongy,
slightly parted and
now firmly against mine...
electrifying,
divine...
like sinking into the most comfortable, familiar mattress
for the most transcendent moment in time

"Your change, sir"
said the waiter,
clunking the plastic trey down on the table, before
scampering off to his next adventure

And so were we,
off to ours
with little else to say,
and never to see each other again

I left the money,
along with her life
There on the table of that restaurant

A small price of admission...

for both of us