Felix Dennis

We knew immediately. A wide-eyed look...
I searched your eyes and knew what was in mine:
An invitation we must both decline—
But as you sipped your wine your fingers shook,
And mine shook, too.  Vesuvius erupts!
I gabbled as I fought the urge to tear
The silk from off your back and do it there,
While fainting matrons gloated in their cups.
But we are neither young, nor cruel, and so—
The moment passed, or rather, we forsook
What in our youth would not have seemed so mad
As it seems now; world’s shame we never took
The rightful path of easing such a blow:
  And if we had — might that have been so bad?

WARWICKSHIRE, 2008