Paris Song

Even though it’s a warm evening
in Texas,
I sit up in bed
and wonder what Paris would be like
if I were with you.
I’d hum a song
that would stick on you
like honey
and we’d call it
our “Chanson de Paris”.

We had so many songs together back then.

Though it’s been so long,
even still,
every time I hear the words,
“…let our hearts discover”,
I remember you in the kitchen,
chopping vegetables,
and it was so pitch black at night
I could spend the whole time
watching your face reflected
in the window
(that’s how dark it got there).

Even though it’s midnight,
I’m hearing your morning voice
echoing from downstairs,
soft, but full.
Padding
footsteps,
cold, wet curls
lick my forehead;
I realize, suddenly,
I could call in sick,
if only to spend all day long
holding on to that moment for memory’s sake,
so I would have it there forever and ever and ever.
But I didn’t

and yet I never forgot.

Even though I don’t live there anymore,
I envy what’s inside that apartment now,
absorbing what’s left of your exhalations,
breathing the air and dust that held our sparks.

We loved there once.

And now I sit in a room
where the only thing I have left are possibilities.
A lovely little room
awash in memories I’ll never shake off;
the floor,
a thin film of yesterday’s ramblings;
an open window,
the answers to tomorrow’s questions.