After Hours
Counter-top glances
as I reduce the chocolate muffins,
watching you serve number eighty-nine.
Deftly packing and attaching
the sticker onto a pair of samosas,
with sun-pink hands.
Hands that mine want to touch again,
like that time in Swansea.
You catch me looking, and smile.
I stick my tongue out
to make you laugh, but already
number ninety is getting impatient -
she wants her quarter of mature cheddar.
Leave some of the clingfilm off,
let the cheese go hard yellow
as she parades around the shop floor.
My gun click-clicks and I long for break.
Only enough time for a cup of tea,
two fags, and a few hurried words with you -
looking cute in your Deli hat,
bacon rind stains on your red apron.
You finish before me today,
and after you've gone, I'll still be able to smell
your aftershave for a few seconds -
before Suzanne opens the oven doors
and pulls the bread trays out.
You smile a pert smile, and raise your eyebrows
every time you pass me on your way to the chiller.
When you come back, I know
I'll want to hug you warm,
and kiss the colour back into your cheeks and nose.
The managers walk past, and our conversation
switches to the new scheme they're bringing in
on fresh produce - and returns to last Saturday
when they're gone.
Let's play flirt games
and to hell with the shelves,
let them stack themselves.
First published in Poetry Wales, volume 35 number 1, July 1999
