Please, let me take your hand again,

and lean back the years of our shared childhoods - 

When the days bled - oranges and tangelos,

and we gorged ourselves black - with berries

running our bodies dry with laughter - 

in our mad, headlong dash to the sea.

……………………

Do you still remember the sea - that day?

Her ice-cream blue tongue, licking at our hands and faces.

And you, your white knuckle-bone body - 

melting into pools of summer - 

The bombs fall with the dawning of the morning light , shattering the hope of a new day , beneath pitch black clouds of soot and death 

Newly orphaned children wander through the streets of rubble as the fires smolder through the night 

The bloated bodies of friends and neighbors litter the sidewalk as the mourners come to collect their dead 

The wind now carries the echoes of empty promises , fatal lies and the betrayal of words unsaid 

On Monday I pack up my bag
and haul my week from flag to flag.
Two houses wait on either street,
with different rules for tongue and feet.

At Mom’s, the kettle starts to sing.
She calls me cher for everything.
I answer soft, I answer slow,
in half the French I almost know.

At Dad’s, the game is on too loud.
He keeps his worry in a cloud.
He says, ça va? I say, I’m good,
and we both knew where that stood.

I have English in my heart.

I know how that sounds for a frenchman. Like betrayal, maybe, until I hear what English kept from going quiet. English got the poems, the long thoughts, the little jokes I used as splints.

French is not in my heart.
It’s dans mon corps.

Sitting in my chair, my heart begins to race as my vision distorts and the room slowly melts away.

Am I awake  and dreaming or dead And remembering?am I still here? Should I reach out? Can anybody hear me?

Holding on to what I thought was real. As the pieces crumble before me.

Suffocating , fear like the vacuum of outer darkness , feeding on my consciousness as the void envelops and swallows me whole.

I focus on the clock as the gears of time. Twist and turn before me like a living soul.