Secret Lover Industry

She works for the Secret Lover Industry,
the SLI,
creeps out at night to do her job in
cheap hotels, or luxury ones
– depending –
meeting him at
secret corners,
secret park benches
on a rainy day,
in foggy nights.
She works with more or less delight.
Her code name is ‘business meeting’,
‘sports club’, ‘traffic jam’,
‘exhaustion’.
Her working dress is stunning,
her lip-stick less deceptive
than a contraceptive.
She’s always needed, when she is there.
Her rewards are flirtations, sex,
or bar-seat-chats, a ride into the
country-side, a bundle of
compliments to feed on
in lonely nights.
Her contract may expire,
but never her desire for
the man she will never earn.
Their love is not meant to
be sanctioned, by the church,
or children, if they knew,
by spouses, who pretend
to have no clue.
But there she walks, or takes the bus,
the tube, the tram, or even plane,
clinching to her hand-bag filled with contraceptives,
make-up, tissues – for potential
break-ups.
She works in the most unexpected places.
Sometimes her work is art, when she
mends lonely heArts with pieces of
her own that will never be replaced.
She works for the Secret Lover Industry,
like so many others, who could not
find a better job, or did not want to,
or never cared, or had no choice.
They are Love’s outcasts, Love’s slaves,
Love’s part-time-only.
But they are devoted and
sometimes, sometimes,
they are truly loved.