A City Square
your eyes slide to the right taking mine with them past
our pints and popcorn over
the heads of benches in the crowded square around
the circling carousel carrying the screams
of horses planes and cars full of young happy
faces split in two by circles of surprise under
the hands of the tower clock that slowly make their way to a quieter space off to the side
where with the gentle touch of hands in step to another rhythm only they can hear two dancers swing in a graceful swirl of fabric
over
the city pavement
the carousel stops
the tower's face takes a moment to look
down and we all watch the swallows flirt overhead
wingtip brushing wingtip then moving
on
my eyes come back in time to see
the feel of your fingers touching mine
intertwined as your foot taps out a silent song
under
the table in a city square
Connections
Evening arrived, found me inside the bathroom on
the hard tile floor connected to the outside world
by a receiver and a long rubber cord escaping under
the door from around my younger finger.
I wound, unwound,
and rewound the wire; and the timer ticked down as lines
formed to be next. Darling. Love. You are the only one.
Calling voices caressed my ear, words whispered kept,
now
folded pieces of paper in an old perfume box tied
tight with black string at the back of my underwear drawer;
hidden beneath little lacy, grown-up numbers.
And you study wires.
One blue, one brown, to ground the new light
over the toilet in our bathroom. I pass you the clippers
to cut the cords and hold the ladder steady as we talk
about which picture frames to hang on the walls.
Born and raised on the Eastern Shore of the US, Jennefer Cole now lives and works in Paris as an English teacher and Head of the Bilingual Section of a local high school. She tries to voice the struggles some woman might feel today trying to fit the boxes of "wife, lover, mother" all the while not losing their own identity by taking bits and impressions of her various worlds here in France and back in the US.