Miss Understanding

He scripts postcards over coffee in the pavement cafe,
drums fingers over tabletop,
exaggerates the pause for thought,
fancies himself a Sartre of
the latter-day
(minus axiomatic observations on life and the human
condition,
or any understanding of the principles of
materialism).

He too, he confides to his woman friend,
is unhappy with the state of the planet
-would change his life, if he could only get a handle
on it,
discard black clothes and prevailing trend
if someone who could see beyond his looks,
might rescue him from the company of his books,
(his only real bed mates recently.)

And she, thick-lashed and long-faced,
no Simone De Beavoir herself,
finding unfulfilled longings once more propel
her headlong into the bottomless lakeof human understanding,
manages just the slightest twitch as he reels her in
and up,
and even a smile towards the sparkling shallows of her
cup.