PORTRAIT OF DAVID NICHOLS, ARTIST UNKNOWN
What is the use of a person’s living if he can’t enjoy himself? None! say I–and if one can’t enjoy themselves when they are in the bloom of life, when can they?
Did I meet your ghost in Paris– slim shadow brushing by that night on the street in Montmartre?
I like the way you look at me after all these years.
That rose that fell from the balcony in Pigalle and landed at my feet–did it drop from your long fantomatique fingers? Maybe it was your esprit murmuring compliments in terrible French as I sunned in a green chair in the Tuileries. Your breath on my neck while I lingered in the café drinking red wine and watching the moon . . .
I want to run my hands through your hair, trace the shape of your long nose.
Was it your spectre I glimpsed, waving an immaculate handkerchief from the Arc de Triomphe? I’m glad you died in Paris. Vermont was too small for your élégance, exubérance, “real Yankee” though you claimed to be. It was “utterly impossible to raise a dance” here in winter, and I cannot imagine you in Vermont, in winter, not dancing. There’s something about the gleam in your eye and–oh, I don’t know– your Mona Lisa smile.