Black & Blue is a bar in Richmond

I often meet friends there

It was the only bar that I have visited

That has paintings of coloured wellingtons

Hanging on its white washed walls

The bar was also the place

Where Sephine had given me a copy

Of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s lost novel

Until August which had just been published

It was her first gift which I greatly appreciated

But not as special as the gift she had given me

During our stay at the Hotel Splendid

I can remember her lying next to me post coital 

I was admiring the contours of her lower back

She had surprised me by confessing

That she was a virgin waiting for the right man

Obviously I was the right man

She had expressed a desire to own

One of the wellington paintings

So I agreed a price with the owner of the bar

I am not sure what Marquez

Would have made of this theatre