at the purple pause of twilight
we went and painted the town red,
drove down burnt copper avenues
bathed in slanting silver sunbeams.

if the music were not so loud,
the soft sounds of the stream, birdsong,
the wails of the lady in rags
would pour like hot wax on fingers.

the semi-stranger told me then
poets wrote of niche abstract art
painting the cake and not the bread.
I left him the morning after

with a smooth Monalisa smile
a breakfast of tea-toast in bed
and a note that he later read-
occupied baking bread and cake.