What do you do when a woman
you fancy, a woman you don’t know
but would like to phone anyway saying
you don’t know me but I’d like
to take you out, says, in your mind,
no thanks I’ve got a boyfriend thanks?
What do you do when a woman
you wouldn’t hover over the phone for,
saying its now or never nor think
of as a special lover above friendship,
shows those unmistakable signs of lust,
whose eyes take on the oval round shape
you’ve imagined yours take on when you
look at a woman you fancy and yearn for?
What do you do when meeting a woman
whose beauty confuses you, makes your voice
warble and swallow itself, and, pretending
to cough one of those earnest, fist
to the mouth, slightly intellectual
type of coughs to cover, you know you’ve blown it?
What do you do when you meet a woman
whose effect on you is fair to middling
on the Richter scale of attraction,
whose words make no promises but hint
at allure, whose eyes betray nothing
beyond their colour, that somewhere ahead
of the space between us future happiness
and hard times make you think as she talks,
turning her head from her good side to her bad,
yes, no, yes, well perhaps?
What do you do when meeting that beauty,
stumbling into her eyes with a hint
of nervousness she flows through and over
you shimmering your life into recognition,
takes her fondness for you to the verge of love
then leaves you in a world that melts
and flys off in all directions?
But what do you do when, worse still,
it just becomes too much and all you can do
is spread words across a page so that strangers,
someone you know even, will say of them
yes, no, yes, well perhaps?
***
John
Murphy lives in Surrey, UK and is a retired lecturer and musician. He has had
poems published in various journals and magazines including Every Day Poets,
Ink, Sweat and Tears, Other Poetry, The Pen and Poetry Review (UK). In 2009 he
published a collection of poems, The Thing Is... Ciaralee Books.
