Marseilles
Marseilles
Driving the rental into the gray garage
I remember remembering to remember
Where we parked. The garbage
Workers were on strike. Offensive piles
The stink of which somehow shamed us.
A man met us, British - we rose with him
In the lift to the flat. After he left
I insisted that he'd been nice.
You agreed in the lukewarm way
With which you met my enthusiasms.
There was a balcony. Very small,
Very high. You smoked cigarettes
While we played chess, careful not to win
Too soon, or smile when the other lost.
And wasn't that just how it was with us?
We were always trying to take prisoner
What was at once most precious
And most powerless in the other, to make it
Such that the other couldn't move.