wordsmith and mongrel

Tag: love

woman

You believed you were a woman when the
flare went up, spiking shards of fire
through your diaphragm and into something you thought
maybe was your heart? When your eyes fed
your stomach and your mouth,
bereft,
went dry. Looking had become
an occupation and working woman sounded better than just
working girl.

You played at being woman when the flames
danced down your arms and you found
you could command them to
warm your grasp
and sear your prey

You shied from being woman when you reached
the edges, where the wires bared
possessive teeth, and where you had to
watch for openings:
a gate left unchained;
an angry streak of rust that
crumbled beneath the pressure
of your fingers;
a gap through which to crawl
and come out bleeding

You became a woman when you chose
to turn away, and though your longing
howled in the night, you
struck out for open country in search of
other things you did not know.

offering

The moon?
Oh my darling, no,
the moon is too cold and too quiet.
Instead,
I would give you a roaming brass band on
Sunday mornings, Brazilian drummers on Saturday nights, the clinking
of dishes and the chatter of terrasses.
I would give you
the place de la Bastille the night we qualified
for the final, a cacophony of horns, a snapping of flags, a roar
of savage jubilation,
and I would give you my eyes,
bright with sunshine.

The stars?
Oh my darling, no,
the stars are too far. But I would give you the smell of baking bread
floating in my windows,
the murmur of passing visitors, a light breeze
to stir the geraniums or
make the candle flame dance,
I would give you the pavement below and
the stonework above, and I would give you
my hands, curled around the stem of a
late-night glass.

The earth?
Oh my darling, no,
the earth is too big
and too troubled. But, oh, my love, I would give you
Paris in the summer,
and by that I mean,
my heart.

the other kind of love

If we were lovers, I could follow you
across the world
pack only sundresses and my
beating heart and say
I went all in for love
and sure
it might be foolish but it might also be
the entire course of my existence

If we were lovers I could fall apart
in public, run crying
from your farewell kiss and
beg you not to leave me, not even
for the adventure of your life

Because you are my friend I must say
go
leave
be happier in a place where I am not
and I must do all this while continuing to
love you
via WhatsApp, if I’m lucky
and I must not tell anyone that my heart is broken because
you are my friend.

people-watching

I spot you on my way to Tuesday drinks at Le Siam, coming off the Pont au Change. You’re sitting outside Le Mistral, a bar that shouldn’t be, but is, my favourite.

It’s tourist central, a little overpriced, nothing special. It sits next to the nondescript Place du Châtelet and traffic jostles by on the Quai de Gesvres.

But when you take one of the wicker chairs facing due west, you look out over the river to the pearly spires of the Conciergerie, and in the distance beyond the Pont Neuf you see the top half of the Eiffel Tower, far enough away as to seem deliciously mundane.

I sat in one of those chairs (the one next to where you are now, in fact) for the first time on a summer evening a few weeks ago and talked about love with an old friend. An American tourist at the next table asked me for a restaurant recommendation and I was able to give one, confidently pulling a business card from my wallet. It’s just around the corner, I said. You’ll love it. Order the duck.

I’d just come back – come home – from London on the train and I gazed out over the hazy view with proud familiarity.

There are two of you sitting there today, with a spare table between you: you didn’t come here together. You’ve just struck up a conversation and your shoulders still face outward. You don’t want to over-invest too early in this interaction so you’re turning your heads to speak, making glancing eye contact, using the view to plug the silences.

You are two strangers wearing the same expression: tired but awestruck. You are both very fair and it’s clear you are both in transit in the City of Love.

I hurry on, wondering if you will recount this story at your wedding, finishing off one another’s sentences, correcting details of how you met on a sidewalk in Paris, thirsty and footsore from your urgent holidaymaking.

Perhaps you won’t remember who initiated the conversation or what you drank or even what you said but you’ll agree forever on the way the sunshine grew thick and golden over the Seine. On how it felt like it was seeping into your veins, a slow warm elixir that was disease and cure in one.

On how you began to fall in love.

amazed

He turned up in your brother’s loungeroom, or
so the story goes. Did you ever wonder what
fateful breeze or cheerful tide
brought him there? I don’t think you did; that’s
the oddest thing of all, it didn’t even
cross your mind to wonder

You liked him and he liked you back
just fine, and you exchanged feelings like
old air, like
fingerprints on sale items or
smiles on passing children

You kept liking him and he kept liking you until
you loved him, and you exchanged other things:
complex sentences and bodily fluids and
little bursts of rage and
three hundred thousandths of your life, and it
surprised no one when he loved you too

And kept right on loving you, through
summers charred with old flames and winters when you
stole the blankets and long autumns when you crumbled
into pieces

You loved him through sweaty football socks and
stained Calvin Kleins and into Italian cotton when he
stood up in public and declared he would love you
always, and you pushed white lace off your face and
swore you’d do the same

And then you did. Even when his love for you grew
too big to contain, and tore you open so that
you would never again be just one, but
two (three, four?) you just
went on loving

And now he fetches dessert while your daughter
falls asleep with your nipple in her mouth and he
still loves you and shows no signs of
stopping, and you still love him and still
you do not seem even
remotely
amazed

© 2024 Jane Symonds

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑