There was nothing to it,
a sense of time stopped
at four o’clock in the afternoon of a late July day,

the town collapsed,
no-one doing anything at café tables
outside the shell of a hotel, that in its heyday

could have stood on la Croisette,
or the Promenade des Anglais –
that might have been transported here

with its clientele, its reminder
of something grander, the old man
leaning back in the parasolled shade behind

and starting to sing, a turn of the century song
which begins in a waver
and grows louder, confident, applauded by the waiter

until he pushes back his chair
and in his elegant ancient jacket and bowtie
and hat that he lifts with a jaunty tremor

rises and moves
from that time into this, into full sun
in a slow creaky waltz . . .

That was all it was, an old man dancing from the shadows
and singing, his arms extended to draw us all in
it’s because I’m in love –

catching my eye with a twinkle, raising his hat again
it’s because – off balance, out of key
and perfectly tuned to this moment.