‘No Cygnet for Sleep’ contains strong language, sexual scenes, drug use, and gore.

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No Proposition Denied

By Jivan Ward

Knife fork and plate chatter screech falsetto. Waitress lead we cramp in couple’s row. Left, wrinkle foreheads and retirement holiday tan rest off forty year survival. Right, designer stubble chortle mani-pedi giggle and date-etiquette Chianti on tap. My elbows pinned by space bubble I can’t break. Ignore it down to menu and glance over laminate A4 sheet Italian sub-headers with Anglo-colloquial-condescension below. Décor of wall-mirror and chandelier, staff upper-class penguins amiable frenzied waddle with dishware arms and cutlery tendrils. You fingers scratch wrist menu flip over for beers and wine. We decide wine bottle both know easier to talk merry when old friends begin like new. There was time when we knotted noose. Only teen angst camaraderie petered out with early-morning park beers and all-night energy drinking at laptops and…