​Ploubalay
 
We’d travelled all day,
stopped to camp in Ploubalay,
hungry, throats dry as rust.
A thin street. No cafes.
 
We came to the one bar:
blank walls, dusty floor,
a man lean as a desert rat,
slumped on a wooden stool.
 
Pointless to ask, you’d think,
but when we dare to
chance our stuttery French,
Voila! swing doors open
  
on to a hubbub of tables,
a clatter of cutlery, rising above
a huge hall. A smiling waiter
pulls out a bentwood chair.
 
Others glide by, carrying platters
of bread, langoustines, lamb navarin,
tarte aux pommes. A starched napkin
sits up, pleated with promise.
 
Sometimes all you must do 
is ask, walk through the door
to the next room. Even now
they are setting a place for you.

First published in Orbis 170