Back in Paris

the grim, gray face
had great dark eyes
waiting for the second World War
from a safe balcony in Paris,
near where an island forms a church.
she was without her Spanish stranger,
but he was holding a young blonde girl
in bondage and was unable to break away,
as her ropes pulled tightly around his past.
and his Russian wife was too skinny to know, and not
well enough to understand that her own misfortunes
had driven him far far away and it would not be gentle.
he now lived inside a hot beach cabana, peeking outside
only when he needed more money.
the young blonde girl quickly became both his obsession and his sister,
as she curled her pubic hairs inside their bathing hut on a
sandy Dinard beach and gave him plenty of pause.
his wife, meanwhile, kept her own hair
cut short, to resemble a current fashion.
and the gray lady in Paris put her hand to photography,
instead of a bust, but it wouldn't make any difference;
the Spaniard would seek her out, eventually.