After he learned of his mother's death

After he hung up the phone

After he wondered if his dead father might know,

He walked to La Etoile Filante seeking

The matinee's darkness, doors shutting city behind him.

He was next for a ticket, grateful to be where he

Heard not one voice carry his tongue.

It was then she came an angelic girl moving an inch at a time,

Grand-maman on her arm, stooped ancient's antenna

Stick probing short arc space before their feet.

He said not asked please go ahead and

Knew he did it because of the girl, a sin he believed

Pebble small but one sure and hard.

All tangled in her hair, a wailing coursing of ginger, he prayed

In silence behold, my world, blushed cream cheeks seeming

Not of this life. He would not hear the pounding rain slap the

Panes nor notice his stopped breathing,

Nor his shoe lace undone

And thinly

Trailing.

Inside he sat alone on the aisle

Witnessed them go by, a cadence so cramped it

Seemed not much like motion at all.

He watched himself rise in the dark

Leaning against the girl whisper strong please take

This seat, the film's orphan hues setting

Her ablaze uncovering the smile in stops and starts.

He sat behind them and closed his eyes, tired willing,

And gave in to the dream The girl would take his elbow,

See him through the rain, into declining light,

Speaking nothing wiping rain from her cheek on his shoulder,

The hand sliding up the back of his arm, the two following

A stony path, stepping finally up to cool starched linen,

Cloud pillows hissed steam mile high lightning charging their

Blood, his breath pouring out, a crazed wild horse blind making for

Silvered altitude, her impossible glory bundling him up, setting him afloat

Across the mouth of a river not known, to drift, to drift into a purple

Sky toward the distant side, pink sand upon which he could see he was

Walking looking back at himself and the girl still standing.

Allston James