Journal Secret du Petit Poucet
(2008)
Mademoiselle Poucet entered every night at sept,
in a ragged, vagabond chic and ordered sauvignon blanc.
And was set. A specter of a woman, a matted blond gaunt
of regret.
10/9/00
Almond eyed in dew in an Autumnal sky of blue,
my back to the blades of grass, the sun was shining through
the limbs of the whitebean tree as you hummed inside, withdrew
and I dedicated my October ninth's to you.
She kept a pace of three an hour, and ignored the ado;
tonight the entertainment was the quartet 'Adieu!'
playing fusion accordion-blues on the porch to a few
while she checked her montre and ordered anew.
4/17/01
The feelings the same. A clutch in my throat,
fluttering motes of something in my stomach. Of hope.
As if my smile isn't enough; not enough to emote
when I see you, as you untie this bundle of ropes.
She sat like a veteran souse, but her eyes were sober;
a set in recluse, she nodded as obliged her final order.
As the bar's crowd ebbed and flowed she was tided over
and slipped out silently to drive a loner.
2/17/02
I etched your initials today. To take this wreck and wish it away.
It turned fluttering motes into interstitial decay;
I tried to Andy Dufresne an escape, in my simplest way,
but I was only left with paint flecks on my tissue, defrayed,
and a loneliness that can't be dismissed in a day.
Or in the weeks since you left. It's so flippant and staid;
the heart's there, but the beats aren't as deft.
And the same tree that we slept together against's piquant has grayed.
I know what I want, I wish you knew what we had
It's gone. I am. Everything else is pursuant to that.
I refuse this bundle of ropes.
She kept her obsession to her self, at her nauseating ease,
as she crawled into bed at odds, awaiting sleep,
in her oscillating moods.
Reading the passages she memorized
that kept her comfortable in place, in a morose to be clad,
broken with the closest thing she had.