Paris Shore (I Return)

I left you for Montmarte

for carousels and Paris trains

A ghost of me without

you and

me and

the riches of thunder now sound above

calling over the Seine

over oceans where

all bridges speak

your name

And in every child

who peers up with longing

for sweets or for Heaven far

far away

I see your face

Your memory in the very rain rising

from pave stones storied

with every lover who left their trace

upon them in their passing

on their rush home to soft beds

and lavender ecstasies and

every cathedral rings your hymn

I take a photo in the night

FLASH

and for the length of a breath

the city dark is awash in angels

It was a Thursday I think and

Emily’s birthday and you were

there quieting on the couch

unseen save

by me and

did you know then that when

you tipped your glass to your lips

the air arrested halo

about your hair?

Silence then

in the din

of your being and

the sound of all roads ending

was in your glance

That glance that held scent

scent of castles

and blood asters and now I

caught in your look which

set fire

to all maps

all histories written before

you

A creature of us

born of seconds

wild in its instance and

hungry in its longing

and it was only days then

before you left your summer dress

upon your mother’s chair

Midnight and ardent footsteps

in parents’ halls

and in the flush of night

your hair tumbled downwards like

a suicide

only to be caught

gasping and we

lived in a rescue of ourselves

For we were the broken ones

whose pieces simply fit

For when I broke

under your touch

I heard my grandmother's voice

a childhood song

lullaby from the sweet keeper

of my youth

"lavender blue dilly dilly...

lavender green..."

I thought of her smile

before the fading curtain

stirred by the Easter wind

and all her hopes

that blossomed like spring

for me

for you

you who were still yet to be yet

dreamt of in the promises

of children who

were never to be but

held nascent and dreaming

in choirs of her Vesper prayers

Then autumn and the

months beyond and

I’m sorry about your friend

and I’m sorry about my valleys

laid bare for your picking as

the wine lay stale upon

the bedside table

Our hearts ground apart

in the tides of our failures

to become the stuff of castles

upon others’ shores

Then tickets far west far

from our longing far

from our loss yet

these trail behind me

like orphans in the saddening wash

The Place de la Concorde yields now

her silence as the rain draws

away into her secret place and

I stand upon this bank

this Paris shore where

all histories

all maps and ashes

call back your name which

no flood of my winter

can erase

You

will only happen once

for me

and never again and now

are the days that if anything of

value ever held meaning and

if starlings ever burst

to the skies upon the sound of thunder

you sat upon a birthday couch

looked left and I return to you now

return to you now

return to you now

on the day of my grandmother’s birth