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December on the esterel
When the barber arrived that morning
I called for a second pot of chocolate;
it had cooled to my taste
by the time the man applied his towels.
The pines, the flesh-pink
roofs, the violet sea…
Judiciously framed
by black pilasters, auraed
with a cut-glass fanlight,
her back to the unlit hallway, Henut
faces the world. Bare-breasted,
hard as porcelain, she
lowers her blue eyelids
and runs her tongue between her teeth.
I breakfasted with the Contessa
and exchanged the usual few words
before leaving for the Gardens. The air,
I recall, whispered of lemons.
Caught in the same pale light,
Henut hooks her thumbs
into the top of her blue-jeans
and hunches her lean shoulders.
Her nipples are brown, like ancient coins.
A thin voice sliced the silence
under the shabby palm trees, and I reined
the mare to a walk: 0 Rabbetna!
0 Tanit! 0 Mylitta! Whose was that wailing?
The first bullet flung me from my horse.
I was on my back
in a scattering of mimosa-blossom
when the pistol was pressed to my eye.
I blinked speechless.
London, Rome, Paris and New York
had the news by noon. The launderer
returned my shirts punctually,
before the hour of aperitif…
She turns from the street, her back
a pale triangle in the dark corridor. 0 Lady
of the Shadowy Sea and of the Blue Beaches
   
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