Avignon glimpse - poem by Bill Wootton

A diaphanous white curtain
wafts
      as if waved by an unseen hand
revealing
wrought iron balconies
at eye level,
then
    misting
bare linden trees
in the cobbled square below,
    where a girl sits
sunning her legs
on a café chair,
smoking Winstons ferociously
before accepting a question
from one of two young labourers
in shorts and workboots
who has come up
behind her;
waves her hand,
mutters something in French,
stares straight ahead,
exhales,
waits:
un, deux,
    turns,
snatches up her handbag and smokes,
arcs off in their direction.


- Bill Wootton