FRISSON
by Paula Bonnell
This time it’s how the words trace it.
We’re past La Seine traverse Paris
and have come to __p__ _6_
venez 100
and Nous venons à Paris
tous les deux, tous les deux. The scent
of cloves is in the air, peonies
make their buxom disclosures
in a peachblow vase set on
a black cloth on the black back
of the piano. I am upstairs
looking out the window, and the words
steal through me: Je suis
à toi. Now I understand.
I am to you is how to say
I am yours or I love you.
More than that, it’s how to
mean what the paltry English
versions falter toward.
And the pear blossom, like
a fine white muslin, graces
the broken blacks of the limbs
of our pear tree. The grass
is elemental. The overgrown
brick walk nourishes its local
abundance of four-leaf clovers.
A plane slants upward like
a needle making gathers of land
and cloud. Je suis à toi.
Copyright © 2017 by Paula Bonnell.