Élodie

It began with a drink
and nowhere to go
me and my footloose
American Dream
perched on the Left Bank
where I’d never seen that
kind of green in a glass

Drink up pal!

It’s just Kool-Aid with a hard-on.

She forgot again
that I’m not American
and those little green bubbles
gnashed through my mind.

Could I reinvent
myself
as a number
and multiply?

I awoke in a bed
where Ginsberg once slept and
she told me a story
about Kerouac:

We came awfully close, but he was afraid of me you see

My cheeks bloomed pudenda pink
when she described their debauchery
on the road but I matched hers
with a tale of some place I’d never been
- a surreptitious trading of lies
to which she smiled, the way
you do at your child when the
dog has died.

We spent my last euros on the Louvre
I spoke behind me in the queue
her face was made of glass
a reflection, tongue out
bink blink

I wanted to eat her
swallow her
collect her
put her into something more
compact, manageable.

Gotcha, didn’t I?

The Guide lost us in
the Egyptian wing
I was tired and
she loved keeping the
exit a secret
from me

and another Kerouac story
and another trick question

Where do you belong?

I said, at home in London where I was born

A snigger:

People aren’t trees; they lie when they speak of roots.

I wished, once again that we hadn’t met
no matter how she excites
like a kick in the eye
that ends with a plunge into
the sound-swallowing lake
where my copy of
On The Road
disintegrates

I dried myself
on the fur of her coat
and I felt an urge
to write:

What do we call the looseness around our hearts?

She laughed at me
but then grew soft
almost kind:

At least this line was not made in Taiwan

this line was made by a poet.