Chanson Pour Jean-Louis

by Elizabeth Ogle

A black smear on the musée steps,
“Pourtant,” he said to me.
We melted quickly in the glaze
of 1963.

Camus, Foucault, and Sartre, such
flavors all Greek to me —
until the cafés spat us out,
he’d talk with such esprit.

He touched me with one hand, his
Gauloises fingers never free,
while I spoke in quotes of Hepburn —
or was Hepburn quoting me ?

He slept inside a bottle and
he dreamt about the sea.
Now I, inside his col-roulé.
What drank you, Jean-Louis ?