poetry and dessert

I was perfectly content to let the writer I was lunching with in Bern decide the place. La Loupa, she explained was owned by a man who was a musician, poet and photographer. The small basement hide-away was adorned with pastel-colored painting for the vernissage in a couple of days. The writer was greeted by several of the regulars, and as I saw later she was regular enough to go behind the counter to get her own glass of water. They talked about the upcoming Latin music night and she reserved tables.

“You must have the chocolate cake,” she told me. It arrived with three forks, a dollop of cream and cocoa sprinkled on the side. Three forks? One for her, one for me, and the third made by stencilling a fork with the cocoa. I took a photo, but for some reason it didn’t come out, which probably is good because anyone looking at it would have instant chocolate urges.

The man who served our food was trilingual: Italian, German and English. While the writer and I chatted he sat at the table next to us scribbling on a small notebook-sized piece of paper. He handed us the poem he had written in German. I could only translate enough words to understand nothing of the meaning, but she filled in the blanks.

He wrote of the pressure of time, and I was grateful that I had the time to enjoy both a fork stencil in chocolate and a restaurant where poetry is served with dessert.