The city’s cold
The wind whips wildly down the alleyways
And the avenues
The narrow streets are quite bleak
In the falling night

The café’s quiet
The spy sits waiting for his rendezvous
In a Burberry coat
He jots notes in code in a little book

Enter Cypher
She stands by the doorway
Framed in the moment of a hidden past

They cross outside
She ghosts him back to his hotel
It overlooks the Quai
The clouded sky seems liquid in the gelid moon

The room is small
The bed is wide
There’s an antique chair
And a cheval mirror with a finical golden frame

They lie together through the long night
Caught in the trace of a difficult lust
That should’ve been better

SOLO

The air is charged in the frosted light of a dappled dawn
Cypher lies awake
His hand heavy on her thigh
She gets up, gets ready as he lies asleep
With graceful ease she erases her trace from the room
She waits a moment by his pillow
Kisses him on the head
Then steals away

© IAN LILBURNE 2019