Our private opera of rain
I love to drive with you on the back roads after midnight
when the only sound is that of the sea. To drive along with you
and me sometimes sleeping, sometimes listening to Bizet.
Or no, perhaps not driving along back lanes, but on the motorway
coming home from a gig somewhere, Liverpool or Manchester
when we’re delicious with sleep and wine and the buzz of an audience
and how you hold me, one hand on the wheel, the other resting
on my knee and you tell me, you were fine sweetheart, just fine.
The warmth in your voice soothes, we drive a little faster.
I remember the time we got lost in the storm on the moors
couldn’t see for rain spraying the windscreen. No map, no torch
we stumbled, skin soaked, into that pub – what’s it called again? —
Tan Inn. Now we’re home, riding each other, palm pressed
against palm – insistent rain beating our window.
Your poem hit like a double Courvoisier, smooth, fine and sensual.