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