Heat Wave

Two strangers, on a Sunday afternoon,
Sat down on a bench by a lake
And he looked at her, and she at him,
Should he smile? Was that a mistake?

So he looked straight ahead at the lilies
And she fed the ducks all her bread
While a band played over the parkland,
“It’s so hot”, she suddenly said.

“I envy those lilies afloat in the breeze
And the people in boats over there,
On a day like today we should sail far away
With the sun, sand and sea in our hair.”

He had noticed the hoarding ‘small craft for hire’
And had thought how nice it must be
To take out a boat on a hot summer’s day
If you weren’t just an ‘I’ but a ‘we’.

“Then could I be your Captain, ma’am?”
And she placed her arm on his own
And walking to the boatman’s shed
Chose a boat for an hour’s loan.

So they glided under the willows
And she trailed her hand in the lake,
And she looked at him and he at her,
And she grinned, was that a mistake?

But the day made her suddenly happy,
She wished that his thoughts she could see,
Then he gave her a smile of sheer pleasure,
Now no longer an ‘I’ but a ‘we’.