152. La Seine, Mi Amor

Pacing ‘long le Pont des Arts
Peering o’er nightbound water –
Thou icy-thick and heaving force
Reminds me of my lover.
‘Twas a child of bubbly zeal
Swept up in boundless zest
For all of life, and life with her
Gurgled ‘long her petite chest.
Those eyes were two harmless whirlpools
Twisting my buoys ‘round
That floated on smart silken streams
Of Violet capping gown –
Still in mind those blackish ripples
Flow twixt a pliant nape
O’er surface, flat and calm,
Dousing with her shape.
She served me at a diner here
When we but two and twenty;
Scarce I come upon these banks
But unto hers came plenty.
“The spice of life,” she told me oft,
“Is newness in a glance;
C’est la vie, but to find
Exciting circumstance!”
We clamped our padlock on this bridge
And kissed under the sun
That clambered o’er sleepy mists
While Notre Dame rang on.
But now that lock has been removed,
And she, my love, expired,
Damned upstream by junkie lad
Whose drivel she admired
To leave me cold on Pont des Arts –
All her shores retract
Just as the twenty came before
Though I ignored this fact.
“The spice of life,” she told me then,
“Was pleasant in our time,
But now I must try something new
Since I myself must find.”
That river flowing endlessly
Will stop not for amor
Since I have long since found myself
In her…or so ‘twas thought before.
“C’est la vie, c’est la Seine,”
I mutter underbreath
Before I take the forward plunge,
Embraced in lover’s depths.