There I am in the café,
sitting in front of the potted geraniums
wearing the straw hat I just bought.
I was writing a note to my mother
When I looked up to see the shadows
Of the early autumn evening
Dancing across the stucco walls.
Then you walked by—
You were taking pictures of the light—
I watched you
trying to imagine what you were seeing there
And then you turned your gaze on me
And shot this one here—
A little out of focus—
but it was then that I saw them
The tenderest eyes I’d ever seen.
Look. This is where we found ourselves standing later
By the edge of the river
The one Van Gogh painted
We walked for hours feeling the night air
You talked apertures, lens and focus.
This was the hotel, Le D’Arlatan…
Do you remember wandering the back streets
Lost in the cobbled labyrinths
Till we found ourselves here?
The oversized antique bed held expectations.
I felt shy
You said “Pull the curtains”
and I pulled the heavy curtains back.
I read you a poem by candlelight
You smiled right into my soul
Then served us farmer’s wine
In the opalescent glasses we’d bought that day.
I put the photographs down.
“It was so good,” you say,
“Like the wisp of a dream I can barely remember.”
I lean into your eyes; those milky apertures
Transparent with the film of a lifetime.
Now, I offer you wine and pull the curtains open
Catching the last dance of light on the peach-colored walls.
You put on the old songs…
We sit in chairs by the window,
Admiring the blue hydrangeas
Our knees will touch
and we will speak about how
the quality of light makes everything different
and everything the same.
***
