La Rochelle, France
It’s been ten years since I sat in the dust by the side
of a dirt road, dry grass prickling my legs. Lonely girl,
acting out a tragedy no one else was watching.
It was a little world of red roof slates, silver oyster shells,
and grey barnacle rust clinging to harbour walls.
A desert of blackboard shavings, tourist debris.
Now, outside our cabin, the sky is heavy with thunder,
cut through with lightning like a dome of black marble.
I am standing by the wooden wash basins, surrounded
by crisp spider carrion, clutching my phone like a flare.
Not quite star-crossed: our meeting was a technological accident.
No constellations, only data and algorithms. Our North Star
was a screen glowing in the dark, reaching across a city.
You are a person of open spaces, and you were waiting for me
at the end of the dirt road. For the first time in a decade,
I can breathe in infinitely, and my phone begins to ring.
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