Sitting up now, Enya frowned at the complimentary issue of Stanzas on the bedside table, whose cover boasted: ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SONNETS!

She turned and gazed at the other bunk across the room. The man staring back at her looked tousled and weary, though still pretty attractive.

”You need a vacation, Clint.”

The past year had taken a heavy toll on them both, but Clint didn’t appreciate hearing proof in Enya’s voice. Her usually sharp blue eyes looked dark, like she was wearing two eye patches. In addition, a layer of stubble-rash shrouded her strong jaw and dimpled chin. But around her temples the blonde highlights accentuated her thicket of black hair. Although his colleagues insisted the blonde only hid her bookish grey, Bo Dean disagreed.

“If only Stanzas could see us now,” he muttered.

“Aw, come here.”

Last month, much to Bo Dean’s embarrassment, Stanzas had listed him as one of Melbourne’s top ten most intriguing poets - a dubious honor that made a laughing stock in spoken word circles. The accolade had resurfaced to haunt him at the lecture he had given on the French Symbolistes.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the hostess had announced to a full house at Dandenong Town Hall, “our guest tonight needs no introduction. He is the author of only one collection of verse: Never Go Ashtray, but when I say he wrote the book on the emerging twenty-first century poetics, I mean that quite literally. Many of you probably use his book in class.”

The students in the crowd nodded enthusiastically.

“I had planned to introduce him tonight by sharing his impressive curriculum vitae. However,” she grinned, glancing playfully at Bo Dean, who was seated onstage, “an audience member has just handed me a far more, shall we say, intriguing introduction.”

She held up a copy of Stanzas.

Bo Dean cringed. Where the hell did she get that?

Captain Enron threw the sheets down on the table again.

“And to think just yesterday I was singing your praises at the Slam Poets Annual Conference! Po-mo indeed! Try crap-mo! Get your prosodic butts out of my office. Pronto!”

Meanwhile Bo Dean, unfazed by Enron’s improvised speech, was staring at Enya with a look of admiration.

“Don’t tell me, you too?“

“Yep.”

“I really liked that.”

“Thought you might.”