I wonder who you’ll be today; won’t fall this time.
A hundred months plus sixty-two’s a small lifetime.
Clad in black holes, vanilla-scented, I will dance
in boots where soldiers stood. I’m standing tall this time.
In Demdike’s steps I followed closely once, and now
I walk Alizon’s path. A city mauled by time.
We move in secret through the shadows of our past
revisiting graffiti that we’ve scrawled on time.
Four walls, all white; the windowpane that faced me down,
so washed by harmonies of waterfall that time.
Your letters typed still echo with the voice I knew.
In air and glass reflected, I’m appalled by time.
No virtue bright to light my head, no ties that bind,
no silence held in half-forgotten halls this time.
Donatien writes no more, but now his quills are yours.
His book is in your hands. I fear I’ll crawl this time.
Your fingers are my bracelets; round my throat, my name
lies heavily – and at my back, a wall, this time.
Your strength burns like the sun, and I remember still
when bruises wrapped my shoulders like a shawl that time.
New chapters, pages turned, corrected. Bound beneath
le beau jeune homme sans merci, I’m in thrall this time.
Among the cotton reels, I’ll wait. Merlot for two;
vanilla fades upon me after all, this time.
September turns to March, and fifteen juries die;
I wonder who you are now, after all this time.
poetryandtea 