There is a window at Nice where I often sit just to stare
across the blue painted Mediterranean, calm as cerulean
wallpaper water with rarely a wave
to disturb the sounds of morning
colors bleeding, safe and well contained.
I gaze at the faces of houses that abide
in the city
like bathers on a ribbon of sand, bronzed beach
bodies asleep, one on top of another.
Sometimes I bring flowers and place them
between us on a pedestal table like a garden,
yet sometimes just the clouds are enough
to make our passions blush.
There is a window at Nice where I notice familiar
eyes of a lover, canopied below the hills,
we stare as lovers will on a rendezvous
and if in the mood slow dance, sidestepping
velvet ottoman, sofa and chairs
behind the butter-lace curtains and massive shutters
opening onto a green veranda,
we’re locked in a jealous struggle, a once in a lifetime affair
and the palette of colors grow half a shade darker andl ess
tempestuous in each counting year.
There is a window at Nice where a young man will fever
for the hips of a beautiful girl
swaying as she walks down the street in a dress of the
sheerest linen-net, while the sun that funnels her legs
paints her sandals, plays tag with her toes,
the lessons of love always passing
below and above
lessons that can’t be explained.
There is a window at Nice where an old man remembers
more than he can see;
the sounds of pigeons that inch on the ledge
a dove or two that coo in the moist morning air
stars withdraw into a bathrobe of sky
sunlight yawns at the world awakening,
an old man with a passport of colors
becoming the landscape he sketches.
There is a window at Nice where my love’s kiss lingers
where her healing hands touch a finger tip
to her sealed lips;
I understand then the silence of the sea
and the melancholy arc of days traveling
back to where love began
in the air of my studio window at Nice.
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