Let's Just Eat Croissants Together

I want to eat breakfast with you

in the park, where we slept all night.

I’d rather that, than spend a night

in a swanky Paris hotel

or trip-it to New York

or feel my heart pounding

before touching my toe

to pirouette-polished floorboards

and dance with the corps de ballet (one day?)

*

I can’t help but inhale the thrilling glint in your eye

that ruffles the smooth contours of your perfect face,

that unravels how I long for you.

I can’t help unravelling because of your love for croissants

jazz

the vibrant cerise dahlia’s

circling our park fountain

*

and repeatedly I yield to us

breathless from our telepathy.

Only I can catch that glint

wet from the cherub spouting water

its marble lips so cold and smooth

even when right above

tender rays of morning sun

sweep over our molten bodies.

We slip out of smooth slumber

still clinging to our moments

like selfish clouds holding onto rain

*

while breakfast croissants fall in pastry flakes

and there seems to be no point to them.

You smile a little on your left side,

leaning on your elbow, brown eyes alive

and I think of consuming you

instead of all the pastries, except

perhaps, the ones from that boulangerie

on Boulevard Saint-Germain—

ones which you haven’t tasted yet.

*

We can travel there together,

float up in a silk air balloon–

scatter crumbs over the park-keeper’s grimace–

sorry we outstayed our welcome

but elated now, to be flying;

aerial dancers, wind combing our hair smooth.

Solemn clouds–softened to tears

sprinkle baptism on our smooth passage

of ephemeral yearnings of youth.

*

What’s the point of all these dalliances?

Stumbling, fumbling, experimenting,

wondering whether this person is the one (he’s not)

to turn our Charlestons into ballet?

Did it matter whether Baryshnikov picked Kirkland

just for the thrill of the flight?

Or do passions cut corners, change direction,

glide, like condors harnessing whatever currents

will carry them best.

*

I’ve no wish to pick over a future

that was never ours;

nor to sequester the history

you won’t find on my CV;

but to claim ownership of shared croissants

would be to gag on all the lustrous

sexy sighs and French kisses

that slid like silk

from our satin-stitched tongues.

*

I don’t want a rusty prison helix

to split our sheet-clean flawless sky

when I look up at you,

slide into your smooth sleep,

dream of breakfast with you.

* * * * *

Inspired by Frank O’Hara Having a Coke with You

* * * * * * * * * *

Teresa Renton has a first-class degree in English Linguistics and Language Creativity. She was a finalist in WOW's (Women on Writing) Winter 2025 competition. Her work has previously been published in Flash Fiction Magazine, Across the Margin, Stick Figure Poetry, 101 Words, and 50 Give or Take. She lives mostly in a tangle of words. Her friends and family would say she asks too many questions.