We were amateurs, that winter in Paris.
The summer before we agreed:
he would come over to keep me company at Christmas.
But the shelf life of my promise expired
before the date on his airline ticket.
So we ended up together under a French muslin sky.
Together alone.
Certainly I was alone, inside dark hair, inside foreign blankets,
against white sheets swirling like a cocoon,
covering my bare skin,
keeping me apart.
The invited man snored beside me not knowing
I didn’t love him anymore.
At first I tried,
perky as a circus pony waiting at the airport gate
to be again as I once had been.
But even during the first night
betrayal, the snake under the evergreen,
threw me into nightmares
of floods and dying birds.
You see, a new boy just last month
had raised my shy hand to his warm mouth
and kissed the inside of my palm.
I thought “this is impossible,
too close to Christmas, too soon, too dangerous.”
In Paris I concede:
deceiving my old lover, the one now stirring in his sleep
is even more dangerous.
See him opening his eyes, looking at my face,
dropping his eyes to my breasts and smiling
as if he were seeing two old friends? Dangerous.
When I move away and hold the sheet against
myself he,
sensing what this means,
refuses, adamant yet polite,
to traffic in the currency of my rejection.
He made a journey. I offered a welcome.
Why should he give me up?