[In response to the tenth Finding Daily Inspiration prompt https://dailypost.wordpress.com/blogging-university/writing-everyday-inspiration/, I submit one of a series of observational poems that I initially wrote back in 2004-2006, at a time when I would spend most of my evenings ensconced with a notebook and a beer in a corner seat in a bar that I came to regard as my own personal space, watching and writing about the other patrons around me.]

 Family Night-Out

 The father tut-tuts seriously,

seeing the way the match is going.

In front of the TV, he’s boss.

His eye for error’s keen; his limbs

toned by a lifetime of hard

manual work, of which he’s proud.

 

The second missus, head rested

on his shoulder, sniffs noisily at cheap

meat on a stick to check it’s

fresh. She has her doubts but, all the

same, she wolfs it down, so nothing

goes to waste. Bored slightly,

she’s distracted by the other people

round. Her husband pays

her no attention at all.

 

The boyfriend is a gentleman

in the making; doing his best

to show his gallantry, in his gauche way,

when not distracted by the game

& worries of a hard yet

idle life that tell on his

lank looks & limbs.

The girlfriend,

still a girl, smiles throughout

through lively eyes & missing teeth.

She throws brief looks at me, watching,

&writing, and at her watch,

giggles&yawns (not bored: this is the best

it gets she thinks), just wanting

to go to bed.

*

Their eyes, though skewed in different

directions, stake out the corners

of a square mirroring table

& a screen. A sudden goal brings them

together in a star of joy.

Mother

& daughter-in-law-to-be will not

set foot inside the restroom,

unless they go together. The

girl glances my way more often

than mere curiosity would

warrant, as if I were a cameraman

whom none but she can see.