The pianist, live and in fine form,
does not play “Tea for Two,”
though we are two for tea

this Sunday at the Empress,
the queen of high tea in Victoria.
Instead, he’s declaring,

with rippling flourishes,
what the world needs now
is love, which is precisely

what the sweet-smiling server
delivers as he offers us a hinged
wooden book bearing tea

descriptions as well as little
windows of loose tea we can see.
We choose, and shortly a pot

arrives for each of us—
Orange Vanilla Grove for you,
Rose Congou Emperor for me—

set atop a ceramic warmer with,
appropriately, a tealight candle
inside. And this, of course,

is just the warmup act for the
pièce de resistance that arrives,
a three-tiered assembly

of both savouries and sweets
as the pianist swings into Gershwin—
yes, our love is here to stay—

in an easy, jazzy 4/4, then as we
bite into scones topped with
clotted cream and excellent jam,

we are grateful for
and tempted to sing along to
someone to watch over me.

Except for the very casually
dressed young men in collared
shirts and shorts, and the young

woman who sat down near us
in perfectly white denim jeans,
we could have walked into

the 1930s, the pianist
seamlessly morphing from
“Embraceable You” into

The way you wear your hat
The way you sip your tea
The memory of all that

no, no, they can’t take that
away from me. And they can’t,
they certainly can’t, as you

return from a quick photo turn
around the room, settle again
into the lovely wingback chair

that is yours for this foray into
tea heaven, pick up your cup
to sip as if we do this every day,

here in this city we love where,
yes, it is summertime, and
the livin’—oh, lucky us—

is easy.