Mind the Gap

La tour solid in the mauve of the soirée.
The savor of onion soup in a sprightly café.
The satiety of daube and the symmetry of Yves.
It was in Paris that I squeezed
into the silence of a Gréco, leopard-skin non-self.

Trapped in form-hugging expectations,
a foreign cleavage in my eyes.
Le, la, les, Je suis désolée
my mouth plugged as I heard them say:
« you’re telling salads;  it’s not your onions ».

Which means: that’s fake news;
and mind your own business
disguising me in unfamiliar perspectives
as I dodged the shady meanings
of the false friends.

It was at a Hen Party in Neuilly
(which is called a burial in French)
that I split the seams of my articulations
with a slight fault in pronunciation :
Q (cul) instead of Coo (cou)

means BUM, the waiter shocked dumb
« She love me »  I heard him hum.
As « S » moved before me in slow-motion
I saw my difference in third person
had become a vehicle for seduction.

I accorded my adjectives neatly
accentuated the grace notes sweetly
and asked him for a rendez-vous.
Les affaires are good, he answered.
Alas, he couldn’t get his beak round the TH

aspirated the « H »  to my surprise
then fluttered my cheeks with a bise.
Saying « I sink I am a-pee  ».
My tongue tied like a shroud on a body
I decided to catch the Eurostar back.

The lady who sells the papers in the tube
agreed that I had made the right move.
She doesn’t like them at all, THEY
are definitely rude; she even heard one say
she was « a flea » the other day. #

Kate Hill-Charalambides

# Ma puce - literally «my flea » - is a term of endearment.


If you have any thoughts about this poem, Kate Hill would be pleased to hear them