We fought over an apple on the
train to Paris
and you kicked at me as
we crossed through the gate
onto the cobblestones,
two young Americans in Paris
having a lover’s spat and
making up.
We checked into that hotel
with the tiny balcony
and the red bed with the red curtains.
We were sprouts in a garden
that year.
We never imagined that
it couldn’t last, that time
would grow vines which would crawl up
us like it crawls up everyone
and hold us in factories and
houses and familiar streets.
Every cell in my body is different now and
you are gone,
as gone as Paris of that year.
The train
rolls again across
the French countryside,
rolls into Paris
on
tracks of memory
and we get the same
room and hitch hike across France again
speaking no French,
young Americans with our
thumbs out.
david michael jackson June 10, 2012 editors@artvilla.com