They’re on a date sipping breakfast tea
in between questions they feel they need to ask,
How was your day? Where are you from?
The carpet sits beneath them: blue, clean, predictable.
The clear window next to their table shows
a black car, a black car, a black car driving past.
The sky is where it should be
and then the ceiling collapses, the walls melt
into a murder of crows, the afternoon
opens into a fire as she asks him
What scares you more than anything?

© Carl Burkitt 2022