King Of Afternoons

Jean-Claude had palms of pig skin
from the patisserie and its hot trays
of baton twirled pastries and precarious
trickery with sugar; Pascal had guffawed
across the ovens that when he died
he would make a fine set of handbags
and find himself finally on the arms
of pretty girls in Paris and Cannes.

Though he knew delicate caresses too:
the doughy pillows and soft flesh
he kneaded and thumbed into petit-fours
and three o’clock
when he made the ladies of Colmar
lick their lips flattering his meringues,
the bell tinkles, departures, clutching
charming white boxes tied up with string.

Later he would shut up shop,
decline into a Ricard pastis
in his seat on the terrace of the bar,
here to gorge his eyes on passing women
with a whistle who glance back nervously,
flickering, “What makes him think…?”
But then, say if he was Gerard Depardieu
perhaps they would see the flour dust

cresting his hair that receded these days
from the mountain regions of his face
as more appealing, he might feast
upon these marzipan maidens
who look at him now with horror,
he smiles – one day they will be forty five
and they’ll be his; for he is the king of
afternoons and master of lonely housewives.