Coffee & Poetry

"Oh, is that right? Sounds great." Ella's keys were below a book that hadn't been in her bag the last time she'd dug in it. "Wanna know what I did? I went out and gave my heart away."

The Dalmatian followed her inside and hopped onto her couch, grinning up at her.

"Funny huh?" Ella pulled the book from her bag and sat next to Dali. "Well, one of us deserves a good laugh from all this silliness."

It was the book Rylan had tried to give her back at the bookshop. He'd bought it and she'd refused it. He must have snuck into her bag just before walking away.

She turned it over. Poetry.

"How am I supposed to get over him now, Dali?"

The dog snuggled his head into her lap. Ella petted him absentmindedly, not sure what to do next.

She paged through the book, not really reading yet, just taking in the sight of poems on pages. Suddenly, about halfway through, the pages seemed to flip themselves. She soon realised why: further along a beautiful, plain white card marked a specific page.

Ella moved the card, taking in the words on the page:

Pablo Neruda...

Carnal apple, Woman filled, burning moon,
dark smell of seaweed, crush of mud and light,
what secret knowledge is clasped between your pillars?
What primal night does Man touch with his senses?
Ay, Love is a journey through waters and stars,
Through suffocating air, sharp tempests of grain:
Love is a war of lightning,
and two bodies ruined by a single sweetness.
Kiss by kiss I cover your tiny infinity
your margins, your rivers, your diminutive villages
and a genital fire, transformed by delight
slips through the narrow channels of blood
to precipitate a nocturnal carnation
to be, and be nothing but light in the dark.

Ella pushed up the sleeves of the jacket she hadn't yet managed to take off, and asked herself why Rylan seemed to insist on imprinting himself on her... and why she had been so receptive. If nothing else, she did love that she got to meet him at all. And she knew that she would never forget him.

"And they all lived bittersweet ever after," she murmured wryly to Dali.

She picked up the immaculate card to mark the poem again. She would be reading it many times.

As she inserted it in its place, Ella realised that it wasn't all plain. On the other side, without any flair or gimmick were two printed lines.

Rylan Kade

+2711 217 2007

She wondered about this man who owned business cards that needed no expansion or explanation.

Below the print, he'd scrawled an extra number. Ella's heart slammed. Having his handwriting on something, even just a card, felt so intimate and special. This was no love note – oh, no, it was far more. Most especially because it was clearly his mobile number he had shared there.

Ella's smile was wistful.

Bittersweet ever after.