Each night I dream of a blackened sea

A century long walk along the concrete shores

Riddled with red crabs a Wellsian dystopia

Death marched to the iron shack

A neck-tie noose awaits me

Today I made it to a crystal lake

Surrounded by Poplars in bloom where

Aphrodite summoned me into the cold waters

As she arose a red hair vixen

And taught me how to love

And I’ve made love on the dirty stairs

Behind decrepit churches and washing room floors too

And yes we called that love

And I’ve made soup for the dwellers

of no-man’s land and stole their bread

when I had nothing but a silver coin in my pocket

And I picked myself up to call

Long distance my mother

Where the static silenced my sobs

And mother smiled

I’ve made the suburban blocks at sunset (noon?)

With Junk in my rucksack and when I fell down

I crawled back home with stones embedded in my kneecaps

Where the dishes piled up and I hadn’t washed for days

And brushed it off as Bohemia

I’ve stumbled the Seine in the small hours

With Sartre and Suicide on my mind in

Silver French reflections

And I’ve heard the clock tower chime

Twelve for each hour passed

Two hundred and eighty eight

I counted and in each one

A memory of you.

 

Katie Salomon