January by Michael Charpentier

January

When she cried

Silence

Only droplets dared move

From cheek

to boulevard

to asphalt

Whisked away

To tear-jar aqueducts

We met on the avenue

Beneath peculiar skies

That showered crestfallen dew

My lenses misted

Blinded

With drops of hush

Breaking muted street-light

Into hexagon blurs

Her frail figure stood shy

Draped in rags

Her lips: fragmented, pale;

A stained glass apparition

So unlike the girl I had known:

Presence robust,

Magnificent cloak of winter-white

Her whispers roar;

Exhaled breath

Caressed my body with foreigner’s fingers

Leaving gooseflesh in their wake

Static apathy

To my being,

Still, but impatient

Glazed in the drizzle

Hesitant, I motioned for her embrace

She wrapped her fragile arms around me

An old world goddess

In need of new faith

Pressed to my chest

She sobbed unfamiliar greens

Not for pity, justice but

The touch of a lost love

I forced past the tension

And pressed my lips to hers

Was that beauty or inertia

When she looked in my eye?

We met tear-to-tear

One to another

And struck balance

Between longing and lust

She wiped the condensation

From my spectacles

Through the clear prisms

I saw an elegance revived

And a cold, perfect design

Drifted from snow clouds

She returned to the sky