Red Windmill

 
When this is all over we will go to Paris—
you, the lover I’ve never met, and
I
alone on the bridge of whatever the fuck
with the lights of the Tower
twinkling over us like stars.
We’ll eat oysters and foie gras and dance
our faces the color of absinthe in the flickering light,
laughing and singing, there will be no more war.
I’ll show you the trottoir where I dropped my army
green tote holding a bottle of Boujelais,
which shattered into emerald shards,
and my copy of A Moveable Feast
which I still have somewhere in some box
with all its bleak weeping, maroon bruises.
Love
when we fight I feel it in my stomach so I clap
my hands over my ears—
Ride the windmill, Ride the windmill
The fascists are dead now, Ride the windmill—
You
take my hands and we spin like the steel merry
go round at the playground
and everything dead will come to life again!
The wedding gowns in lily white bloom
beneath the shade of the leaves, the grass patches,
even the bloodstains will come out.
This time the center will hold.
Isn’t it pretty, love?
Isn’t it pretty to think so?

***

(Featured image from Pexels)