At the Quai de Valmy you took a picture of me then you turned west and took a picture of a lonely tree July 25. a bottle of rosé. you and me. days sipped away beneath the Leo sun rain at the Tuileries heat at Bercy walking side by side, you rested your head on mine somewhere between Concorde and Bastille our only afternoon happened in borrowed rooms knowing what I know now, I still would’ve. rue du Trésor. third floor. gold leaking through feeble curtains. outside, Paris murmured. the fountains kept singing, little did we know they were singing us out. at 1:18 I saw it L O V E in red. this, I thought, is how movies end. you said you kept the cork from that rosé as I wiped away the tears that had slipped down your face. I asked you to stay. you said you couldn’t. if I’d known then what I know now, you could’ve. so I cursed your name. and back to haunt me, six times, you came. un. you came back to Paris and told no one but me. three times that equinox I crossed the river to lose you. three times the river gave you back. you never saw me. I saw everything. I have called that being haunted ever since. deux. twice on Christmas Eve the ocean brought you in. once from a distance. once close enough to bury your face against my neck. the tide remembered us. you didn’t. trois. April. Paris was shut. nothing moved that month except a notification. almost two years since the picture of the tree. quatre. early January. I dreamt of you. I told my kin. I rang a Bell. three days later there you were. I kept that one to myself. cinq. April again. I knocked on your door and asked what those days beneath the Leo sun had been to you. you stepped back into the spindle you’d been spinning all along. if I’d known then what I know now, I shouldn’t have. six. six fortnights later you came back one last time. again, only in a dream. when I woke, I walked back to the Quai de Valmy and set fire to the picture of the lonely tree. it was still facing west.