A silhouette against a summer sky,
a textbook come to life
there beyond the car’s window -
filling the gaps in the vocabulary of a schoolboy’s French,
the reality of a schoolboy’s dream
Paris, there in front of me.
The waiting ended.
Adulthood arrived with my brown suitcase and a choice
the freedom to finally make the step.
She was the opportunity,
my summer love,
the then "love of my life,"
and when she asked,
there was only one answer.
I went - and I stayed,
trading the distant view for a typical Parisian apartment.
Up past the watchful eye of a concierge,
a winding staircase,
a simple room tucked under the eaves - a possible location for love to bloom.
Living the Parisian dream,
fed by the scent of the nearby patisserie
and the occasional "two-franc" bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau,
the vintage matching our happy, naive age.
Happy; with the quiet courtyard below
and the paper planes I made to throw into the park below,
taken by the breeze - like the love for the girlfriend who brought me to this place,
love now a ghost from a previous chapter.
This city stayed inside me,
claiming the space she left behind.
I stayed - with time enough to walk the streets,
to cement the memories
to which I often returned -returning to stand in the very park beneath that apartment window,
looking up to where the paper planes once caught the air.
The paper planes I launched
are all long since gone,
leaving my heart still up there,
hovering over the rooftops,
always waiting for the next time.
