Life in a French Film

We met at the café as the sun was going down and talked about the state of life. You had long black cigarettes of Russian tobacco. The smoke felt like drowning peacefully in a flannel blanket. You were a temporary kind of girl, that summer we spent in the Left Bank. You laughed off men and your nightclub career. You bet me 20 franc you could outrun me in the Louvre. I did not doubt you. You’re in better shape than I. walking the Seine, we practiced our English and talked of the war in abstract terms. You promised to cut my teeth like diamonds.

That summer, I was drunk with momentary existence, your perfume, unemployment, and a book about childhood in Wales. We argued poetry, you ferocious in your defense of Creeley.

And when Sarkozy won the election, we realized we had been dreaming. We had never been to Paris, and were just trying to make Denver the City of Lights.