I’m not afraid to admit
very few things
she thinks,
head nestling on the window,
over the sleeping Atlantic, eyes,
like drowsy oceans, swelling
over combers of clouds:
she watches herself
drift away
do I arrive
or depart
(a return or restart)
to the city of light
that has warmed,
since girl dreams were born,
the tomorrows
of my lamp lit heart?
yet what could I do,
but dawdle and pine,
write this and offer art:
and hope it speaks mine,
am I not a wonder?
keen, sonorous in stride,
industrious, strength,
brimming with pride; bonafide,
–zut alors
you and me,
divided. I abhor
the wind that blew (your delicate cloud)
from my Rhine.
is your love sewn in guilt,
cold repentance and blame,
is your sweet foolish heart,
here chained to mistakes?
what if you are a photograph,
captured among many,
held by each but for one fleeting frame,
(will you forget my antiquated name?)
which of your colours:
Manet unsentimental,
or Impressions in variation,
french vanilla in tumble,
or, contours, postcards, and maps,
shall fleshen our past–
these stilted
and dwindled days.
I think, for me,
forever in evening,
in fear of
the fast falling night,
or moving slow, pale
window glow,
afternoons, sunlit
in the space,
between grace, clocks,
and tunes: I fumble like a stone
to breathe l’espirit of you.
I know and you know. I suppose,
unfurl in a brave new start,
above bonds of looming crows,
blankets of Western valley snows,
the beating red of my radio spire;
think of a lingering dusk,
when you see that Eiffel tower
on the lush fields of March,
but imagine us as that point,
over fresh Champs du March,
a glimmer at the peak,
on the flat earth,
apart.