Picnic by Les Brookes

Picnic

We spread our plain white sheet
beside the stream, the sun high,
our shadows black and stunted.
The field was a mass of cowslips.
We ate hard-boiled eggs
lightly salted and a plate
of gherkins and olives.
We smiled and munched,
and I lost myself
in the soft pink pout of his lips.

His eggshell eyes were blue
and shone like coloured glass.
His face was a bowl of cream
wreathed by a blond halo.
He rose on bare feet,
slipped to the water’s edge
and dabbled his toes. I gazed
at his slender white legs
and shifting shoulder blades
and knew I was falling in love.

*

Les Brookes lives in Cambridge UK. He writes poetry and fiction, and his work has appeared in anthologies published by Cambridge Writers and Paradise Press. He is the author of Gay Male Fiction Since Stonewall (Routledge) and blogs at lesbrookes.com