Nightingale

In the dead of the night I heard her loud and clear

The way sailors would hear the sirens when they steer.

“Fly away with me,” she said, “to where no one finds.

We can dance too, till lights creep through your weathered blinds.”

Through the wuthering noise I heard her nursery rhyme

Like a mother’s gentle humming in a night’s prime.

“Sleep,” she said, “you have set sail for some distant lands.

Long gone was your cradle, and those sheltering hands.”

While the crickets sing, I heard her calling out to me.

The mellow voice, running free like a child I used to be.

“Stars are watching,” she said, “above your roof and ceiling

Every tear of yours, dropped to the floor and flickering.”

Cette Baguette

- For Capucine

The smell is in the air again,

Wandering through pebbles and the heat of summer.

You were holding it, brown paper bag crunched

As the golden locks swished and swung.

It’d be gone before tonight,

Along with flaring dusk lights

On the window glass, overdue since July-

My shadow in your dewy, lidded eyes.

Your Name

They hardly notice

The name that you go by.

But when I call you,

You are just

A blade of grass, a flower

So quiet,

Hidden in the labyrinth of Chenonceau -

In that frosty morning,

Waiting for summer to come.

Orangery

I brush my fingers

By your quivering ribs, guessing

Which one’s lost on me.