A Smear Campaign

I saw you,

you know.

You didn’t see me

but I saw you.

I was walking past

and you were sat in Emma’s Café

with your back to the window.

There were others in there, too –

an engaged couple,

engaged in tea and toast.

You made sure they could not witness

what I saw.

But I saw,

and I know what you did.

And if you knew that I had seen

I hope you would have been

mortified.

From the front –

the fair facing front –

the innocent public facing front –

it would have seemed that

you were just fondling

your spectacles,

just resting your eyes perhaps

from too long use of

an outdated prescription.

But from behind

I could see

that the right arm of those

spectacles

was delving deep,

deep into the orifice of your right ear

searching the dark recesses

for that itching

bitching

wax.

And I could feel your relief

from

that gnawing,

teeth-clenching

itch

as the shovel-ended

spectacle blade

performed its

miraculous mining.

But I’m no fool.

I would not hang around to see the

denouement,

the moment of

spectacle,

the grand reveal

as laden arm

was slowly withdrawn

from now empty ear.

But how was your tea?

And where is that load now?

Was it surreptitiously wiped on a paper napkin

and left with your dirty plate?

Or was it smeared across your open palm

and then hands rubbed together

until it had

seemed 

to disappear

only actually to be spread

homoeopathically

across every

handle you handle

every

surface you brush

every 

child's head you stroke

every 

barehanded loaf you hold?

Your efflorescent

effluvium

lubricating the world.