He sits by a window at the inn,

writing alone in the breakfast room

at the bare oak table,

glancing at the sky,

color of dingy linen,

pre-winter sun done for the day,

cold enough for snow –

raw, damp, but not yet snowing,

his glass of Coke drawing wet circles.

In another time and place,

it might have been a glass of absinthe

in a smoke-soaked café,

where he gazes at the overcast on the Seine.

Across the room, the blind prostitute Suzanne,

laughing with a patron in a dark corner,

wine glinting back from their glasses,

ominous ruby,

darker even than her florid rouge.

Only once had they spent time together –

her hands sang across him

soft and electric, guiding him to rapture.

But he befriended her, and now

he writes of her tragedies –

how she is beaten by men she cannot identify,

perhaps this one, later tonight.

He scribbles her stories

in his yellow notebook

while outside in the darkening dusk

a few unseen flakes

fall and melt into the river.

10/09/2001

Posted on 10/09/2001
Copyright © 2025 Bruce W Niedt