He is condemned to death

There is a hill to climb.  He knows it,
sees an endlessness revolving to a
future that he thought he wasn't sure of.
He can feel its repetitions; its smoothness
is unmeasurable - featureless.

He'd arranged to meet her in a restaurant.
The place was crowded, and he had to
share a table in the middle of the room.
When at last she entered, out of breath
and eager to apologise,
the restaurant had emptied, and he sat
exposed and stranded.
You picked a funny place to sit, she said.

Did he feel it then? rippled in the
finger-bowl he used to clean the grease
away with?  Or later on - the slow necessity
that smothered him, that hugged 
his will, insisting on the journey that
he had to take anyway
               (You have to take
it anyway, she'd said; why not start now?
Nothing's fated, he'd replied; necessity's
a fiction that we use to make excuses).

Knots of people in the restaurant were
smiling, as though he'd missed a joke they'd
seen long since.  Perhaps he played the fool,
but he was damned if he'd admit it.
Frankly, it attracted him.
You can say he fell; he leapt.

( to the contents page.)