Start of Autumn in Paris

Sat outside a bar near Pigalle,
with autumn painting the earth
caramel and sky lilac,
the space between is a sweet wrapper
sticky and crisp like toffee,
bartenders get us drinks not on the menu +
we talk about the French and how they stare,
how they hold eye contact two seconds too long
how they say excusez moi after they’ve
flung you across the metro
and how the women are pencil thin and the men straw,
we laugh. and in between gunshot mopeds and
bicycles with tiny baskets, we see congregations
ebb and flow and we stare too long.

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French Girl

she struts like the moon takes strides across the earth
glows like the sun’s her personal assistant with stars on rotation,
comets in her purse crushed for foundation,
universe on her lips,
lined with deep darkness,
uncharted nights in pierced tongue.
she sways like an old German fable or Greek myth,
she will drip like honey, taste like honey
then eat my sticky heart and pick her teeth with my ribs
lamenting on the tenderness of my throat as she chokes me with
black holes till I fall, collapse, fold, compress like a dense rock
or putty in her slender fingers.