Rive Gauche

Strolling the left bank twenty years later
sandalwood ghosts of you follow.
Booming laughter falls like soft snow
on straight, neat shoulders—no pads.

New York vendors and you
saw beyond the bergamot and lemon
wax, wrapped in professional wool--
to the clumsy, honeysuckle heart
scrubbing peaches in Grandma’s kitchen,
to the wild, wild child of drunken roses.

Flamboyant iris has all burned off,
still clouds of amber are my crown.
Solid oakmoss the pearly balm
to protect my skin
from storms unheeded.

In Battery Park, gardenia assaults me
leafy greens and tonka break to the surface,
kicking at the rain, and
on the ferry lily of the valley crawls through the fog
to kiss my cheek.

All the years of glacial regret
melt in viscous rivers of remembrance
silent rain drops jasmine on my neck
as I walk through paths unexplored
on the smoldering left bank.