SALAMANDER

 

From dripping dawn to milk churn

to sheep and village fountain.

From orchard and empty

mountain road to gurgling cherry town

I carried a yellow-black fire symbol

through deserted evenings

in hidden streets where men put away

their tools with an apprehensive glance

until at last, we met and drove

the winding road to Olonzac,

and sat next day in the bar

of the shuffling centenarian, proud

of all that chrome and his fabulous

bottles. Izarra and Absinthe from before

La Guerre de Quatorze. Green dreams

and an ambush of photographs;

the striped salamander freed

into the cool, shadow-speckled water.

 

We argued, smoked. These villages fine

by day but a flower-festooned cemetery 

after ten. Driving back still arguing

through a dozen similar places which

I never bothered to observe, the roadside

cherries crushed like a glut of stale moons -

you supine in the grass and the cicadas

raising hell by the factory steps.

Staring thoughtfully past the car

not yet knowing that you also would

swim away to a different life.

The salt taste of your skin, of it all now

years later vanished into the crumbling

pages of a story never told.

 

French Literary Review, Issue 27, April 2017. Editor Barbara Dordi

I'm re-posting this poem as I accidentally deleted it last week