A Broken Appointment

I opened the envelope: it contained
a ticket in my name from London
St Pancras to Paris Nord, departing at 9.17 on the 12th
of the 12th, a Friday; coach 3
seat 27, non-smoking; and another
for returning the following day, at 13
minutes past two, in the afternoon – dans l’après-
midi; and a postcard of Pierre
Bonnard’s Le bol de lait, and there was just
one word on the back — ‘Come’, followed
by an ‘x’. Whenever
I pour
a dish of milk, or dwell
on the loop in the ‘C’ of her flowing
unfamiliar hand, I can’t
help thinking — ‘Oh
what a poem — what a poem Thomas Hardy
might have written
about this!’