Doisneau

Doisneau

Arising from the warmth of your bed
Crossing to the window, lighting a cigarette;
The blue flare of the match is quickly extinguished.
Pushing back the drape just enough to peer
Through the rain into the warm wet late-summer night.
The floor is too high, the angle too oblique
To be concerned about my nakedness.
Gazing out to the street below, neon-lit
By signs over darkened shopfronts, two lovers
Huddle under an umbrella, scurrying arm-in-arm;
But where? To home? To their destiny, anyway.

Two lovers huddle under an umbrella, and are gone;
A moment captured like a Doisneau photograph,
Soft focus provided by the streaking rain and drowsy eyes,
Cigarette smoke and the lingering taste of stale Guinness
On my lips. The lingering taste of you.
Black and white in spite of reality, looking over the
Rain-soaked streets of Cleveland Park at 2:00 AM.
Drawing the smoke from the cigarette, slightly more acrid
As it nears the filter; releasing the drape, turning inward
Once more, the room again dark, the drumming of rain on
Glass muffled. I return to bed.