Peter (my bf) and I were in Paris, about three weeks ago (I was on Spring break, he was on vacation from work).
‘Headstart for Happiness,’ by ‘the Style Council,’ was playing low somewhere.
“This is the kind of starry winter night that guy from the Netherlands used to paint,” I observed.
“If you were writing about it,” he asked, “how would you describe it?”
“Imagine a deep, still blue, hosting a field of luminescent light scatter, and a bashful moon, low in the sky, as if it were hiding in the trees.” I guessed.
“It’ll moonset soon,” he said “within the hour.” he added.
“I never think of moonsets.” I said, looking at the sky like it was new.
“The moon follows the line of the ecliptic,” he said, as if that meant something, “more or less,” he qualified.
“To think I grew up under an undifferentiated sky,” I marveled.

When I’m with him, I can relax, I don’t have to be-on, he’s smart enough.
Of course, I’d come in handy if he went into cardiac arrest or started choking on something.

We were sitting side by side, outside ‘Le Café du Marché,’ a bistro near the Eiffel Tower. Our waiter,  Léo, had just refilled our coffee. It was 9:30 PM and we’d been at this table for about two hours.

We’d reduced the tarte-tatin to a few crumbs forty minutes ago, but Léo knows me and although they're thirty tourists in line for tables, he won’t rush us.

Like puppets dance, we often mimic lines - I don’t know why.
“I was stalking you,” I confided, running a finger along his long-sleeve shirt-cuff.
“I was stalking you,” He said. Our eyes were fixed on each other.
“No, seriously,” I said, moving in much closer, to be serious.
“No, seriously,” He deadpanned back.
“Then I caught you,” I went on, and I was very close now, our lips maybe two inches apart.
“No, I caught you,” he said, smiling as I got very close. “It was ****** Jujitsu,” he softly bragged.
“Wax on, wax off,” I said before I stole a quick kiss.

Peter was shocked, a scooch, by French teens.
If French teens have a crush, especially in Paris, it’s a ‘drop what you’re doing,’ snog-fest - between classes in the hall, on-the-metro, in a coffee shop or grocery store they go-all-in, because love must be stormy, urgent, tinchy.
Here’s a secret. Peter says, “You **** my face, like no one ever has.” It must be the French in me. Ha!

Of course, I learned all I know about love from Taylor Swift.
Let’s see, first, I must be willing to let down my guard - because love can happen at any time.
Love, at its best, is overwhelming, mistake prone, meaningful and powerful - but I can’t assume it’ll last, because my lover may have ulterior motives. I could be hurt or changed by the experience - but I’ll have the memories. Eventually though, I’ll heal enough to try again - with a new set of expectations.

Maybe I’ll even write a song or a poem about it.

When they came down from their disk
With their blinding lights
And their alloy ramps
It quickly became obvious
Unexpectedly, in our hubris,
That they wished only to
Gas up,
Take some pictures of squirrels
And stretch their limbs
Before setting out toward a finer frontier.

He walks the end of the pier, alone
No home to go to,
A ghost in ragged clothes
Passing among the crowds,
Unseen and unheard
But he always feeds the gulls,
Their noisy raucous squabbling
Over a few scraps of bread,
Reminds him of how unhappy
All these tourists really are,
Pretending to enjoy their holiday
Kidding themselves they are free.

off the view
a tree stands in mute amazement
watching beside him
another group of tourists
devour the scenery
with flashy teeth

Daily walks would lead me down

The tourist laden streets

Where people from all walks of life

Would congregate and meet

Buskers, singers, ne'er do wells

Would work throughout the throngs

But in back of Giannis restaurant

Sat an old man sharing songs

He didn't sing so much as talk

His voice was hoarse with age

But a milk box and an orange crate

Were his table, chair and stage

His instrument, an old guitar

Scarred, battle worn and black

His guitar strap was as old as he

An old potato sack

He sat and played to nobody

He just let the words be there

His audience could be a hundred deep

Sometimes it could be air

His music was his lifes blood

It was everything he had

So he shared it with the people

And the people....they were glad

The tourists, stayed away though

They were more attracted by the flair

Of the buskers and the jugglers

Not this man who wasn't there

He never left to join the crowd

And to sell his songs to those

Who really wanted nothing more

Than to hear some manufactured prose

The people who he played to

Were just others from the street

They worked the bars and restaurants

And at night they'd find a seat

In front of this old bluesman

Sitting by his orange box

Playing his guitar by candle light

Taking in his songs and talks

He sang songs from the heart, I guess

About those who'd he'd met

He'd sing about a dozen songs

That would constitue a set

Then he'd open up his silver flask

And ******* two gulps down

"This here's just my medicine"

"My past lives just to drown"

He sang of Truck Stop Beauty Queens

And of Walks out in the park

He sang of people living life

Not just hiding in the dark

He sang of things so real you'd see

Their pictures in your mind

He'd sing of places and of things

That others would not find

But tourists, they just stayed away

Near the buskers blowing fire

While yards away this old man sat

Just like an old town cryer

His audience would leave a bit

of change for their free show

He never asked for anything

For this was his row to ***

At two though when the street shut down

He closed his show down too

But he always had an extra song

A special one for you

His music came from in his heart

He shared it without fear

For once it left his throat it was

A sound that was so dear

The tourists went to hotels

Once the buskers all went home

But he just moved his crate and box

He slept out here alone

He sang his songs of characters

Who helped make us his life

His words were sometimes gentle

While others cut you like a knife

His world was just that orange crate

And his music helped unfurl

The melodies in this mans mind

It helped him share his world

He knew some things and people that

Would take rather than give

He sang about the street people

Because among them he did live

His home was just a cardboard box

Behind Giannis bar

And if you want to see a real good show

You don't have to go far

It's just a little beaten path

Away from tourist fare

Where this little, old, shy

Bluesman sings to hundreds or the air..

I do not believe I could ever love anyone enough to make them my home. My home will always be red dirt and oak trees under the best sunsets in the entire sky with potato patches and country dirt roads, fumbling through sticky tourists on steamy days and letting the salt water feed my skin on the beach I spent all my summers at. My home will always be raspberry cordial and late nights in lovers lane with Canada days in crowded parks and childhood pictures with cannons, my home will always be drunken sidewalks and midnight Chinese, dancing in my drive way and smoking on my back porch. I could never make home in a person enough to follow them away from the place I love...