She was thinner, with a manner gauntness
as she paused just inside the double
glass doors to survey the room,
silvery cape
billowing dramatically behind her.
What’s this,
I thought, lifting a hand until
she nodded and started across the parquet;
that’s when I saw she was dressed all in gray,
from a kittenish cashmere skirt and cowl
down to the graphite signature of
her shoes.
"Sorry I’m late," she panted, though
she wasn’t, sliding into the chair,
her cape
tosses off in a shudder of brushed steel.
We kissed. Then I leaned back to peruse
my blighted child, this wary aristocratic mole.
"How’s business?" I asked, and hazarded
a motherly smile to keep from crying
out:
Are you content to conduct your
life
as a cliché and, what’s
worse,
an anachronism, the brooding artist’s demimonde?
Near the rue Princesse they had opened
a gallery cum souvenir shop which featured
fuzzy off-color Monets next to his acrylics, no doubt,
plus bearded African drums and the
occasional miniature
gargoyle from Notre Dame the Great
Artist had
carved at breakfast with a pocket
knife.
"Tourists love us. The Parisians, of course"--
she blushed--"are amused, though not without
a certain admiration…"
The Chateaubriand
arrived on a bone-white plate, smug and absolute
in its fragrant crust, a black pug steaming
like the heart plucked from the chest of a worthy enemy;
one touch with her fork sent pink juices streaming.
"Admiration for what?" Wine, a bloody
Pinot Noir, brought color to her
cheeks. "Why,
the aplomb with which we’ve managed
to support our Art"--meaning he’d
convinced
her to pose nude for his appalling canvases,
faintly futuristic landscapes strewn
with carwrecks and bodies being chewed
by rabid cocker spaniels. "I’d love
to come by
the studio," I ventured, "and see
the new stuff."
"Yes, if you wish…" A delicate
rebuff
before the warning: "He dresses all
in black now. Me, he drapes in blues and carmine--
and even though I think it’s kinda cute,
in company I tend toward more muted shades."
She paused and had the grace
to drop her eyes. She did look
ravishing,
spookily insubstantial, a lipstick
ghost on tissue,
or as if one stood on a fifth-floor
terrace
peering through a fringe of rain at Paris’
dreaming chimney pots, each sooty issue
wobbling skyward in an ecstatic oracular spiral.
"And he never thinks of food. I
wish
I didn’t have to plead with him
to eat…" Fruit
and cheese appeared, arrayed on
leaf-green dishes.
I stuck with café creme. "This Camembert’s
so ripe," she joked, "it’s practically grown hair,"
mucking a golden glob complete with parsley sprig
onto a heel of bread. Nothing seemed to fill
her up: She swallowed, sliced into
a pear,
smeared every tear-shaped lavaliere
and popped the dripping mess into
her pretty mouth.
Nowhere the bright tufted fields,
weighted
vines and sun poured down out of the south.
"But are you happy?" Fearing, I whispered it
quickly. "What? You know, Mother"--
she bit into the starry rose of
a fig--
"one really should try the fruit
here."
I’ve lost her, I thought,
and called for the bill.