Table for Two

the talk drags on all night, two old bastards mumbling into the black hours about pensions and politicians and how the world’s circling the drain. they never once touch the real rot — the wars that chewed up their youth, the women who walked out and never looked back.

it’s a Christmas lunch, some half-arsed miracle, best table in the poshest place overlooking Regent’s Park, snow pissing down. same wrinkled mugs in the same seats, faces like old wallets, gathered round a fire that burns blue-orange and gives off about as much warmth as a promise.

“Gentlemen, no cognac tonight?” — a faint whisper from nowhere.

fuck your cognac, hand me a Cuban if you’ve got one, or shut up. vintage merlot shows up anyway, cheap laughs bouncing, dumb jokes between geezers who’ve known each other since Hitler was still painting postcards.

grey beards gone wild, eyebrows like uncut hedges, gravy stains on thrift-store anoraks, the smell of piss and yesterday’s soup. booze comes blue and vicious out of plastic bottles from the hardware shop, 28% pure regret, methylated spirits. cigarettes picked off the pavement, half-smoked, lipstick-smeared, saved in a fedora that’s seen better heads. they suck them down to the bitter yellow filter, coughing up sixty years of bad decisions.

another load of snow drops, the brazier dies to embers, and the old men sag into their cardboard thrones, nodding off under black bin-liners, the Christmas table now just another frozen shack on the edge of the park where dreams come to get pissed on and forgotten.

two kings at the feast,
snow filling their empty plates—
the park doesn’t care.