We’ll Not Die in Paris

You forget the lines smells colors and sounds

sight weakens       hearing fades       simple pleasures pass

you lift your face and hands toward your soul

but to high and unreachable summits it soars

what remains is only the depot       the last stop

the gray foam of goodbyes lathers and swells

already it washes over my naked palms

its awful sweet warmth seeps into my mouth

love alone remains though better off gone

in a provincial bed I cried till exhausted

through the window       a scraggly rose-colored lilac spied

the train moved on       spent lovers stared

at the dirty shelf heaving beneath your flesh

outside a depot’s spring passed       grew quiet

we’ll not die in Paris       I know now for sure

but in a sweat and tear-stained provincial bed

no one will serve us our cognac      I know

we won’t be saved by kisses

under the Pont Mirabeau murky circles won’t fade

too bitter we cried      abused nature

we loved too fiercely

                   our lovers shamed

too many poems we wrote

                    disregarding poets

they’ll not let us die in Paris

and the alluring water

                    under the Pont Mirabeau

will be encircled with barricades