Months before it finally found
its way to an art house near
our small university campus
glamorous stills from the film
in popular photojournalism
and glossy fashion magazines
created demand for a style
the clothes  hairdo  the black and white
mood and Marienbad already familiar
to coeds in the heartland
You coaxed your hairdresser to tame
thick curls into a cap that framed
your head tightly and taught
me French for words I’d otherwise
never have known in English even
and on a generous allowance from indulgent
PaPa  bought clothes that simulated those
worn Last Year in Marienbad
whose brooding mystery
your Oklahoma disposition
could not match when finally you saw
the movie    The film as you insisted
on calling it you declared disappointing
How empty it seemed you said
until now these many years later
someone’s wife and mother too
of children not mine you and Marienbad
drift as  in the corridors and garden alleys
of that film from time to time
as if still part of my days and nights
Then he recalled how sad
     he was when she and Marienbad
first were lost then abandoned
     forever but not forgotten