It's summer number twenty-one
and suburbia is slow roasting,
the days turning dreamily
over the spit, as I try
not to set the sheets on fire.
Each night I drench them with
a viscous sweat, wrapping myself
in the smell of conquering Montmartre,
a rush-hour ride on the no. 3 metro line,
close calls with morning joggers
coming from the Parc Monceau.  

Every morning,
lacher is collecting in my damp palms,
and quitter runs in beads down my back.
You must have tasted non plus and
confus beneath my lower lip,
je suis désolé pooling in the dip
of my collarbone, because

You were gone
three days ahead of schedule
in spite of every word held back
in spite of the afternoon drives
and the late night talks, Scott Pilgrim
forgotten on the flat screen, the raspberries
that temporarily stained our fingertips.
Slick truth seeped out somehow, through
their perfect Golden Ratio,
these invincible, nautilus spiral prints
forensically seared to my tongue.

It’s summer number twenty-one.
I will my pores to open up, for floods
of pain jardin lune fleurs printemps
to soak the linen and swallow the words
you left behind, smelling decidedly
American, popped caps of Mexican Coke
and regret.