Aubade
        —for Michael

Head heavy
with last night's Cotes du Rhone,
I rise around six and sit
on our balcony while
you sleep. One by one

the cafes circling
Place Voltaire release
themselves: security gates lift
like silver suns amid
gear-song, locks unclick,

long chains
unratde tables and chairs
and peal into plastic pails,
mops shush and drown
assorted dirts,

streets shot
arrows of gutter froth. Then silence,
sure as a swallow of wine,
intoxicates the air,
enfolds all save

the occasional puff
of your breathing. All along
an old man bundled
in flesh and wool
has sat outside

Le Narval Café,
smoking his pipe and scratching
a dog's back. If he stays
I'll come back to bed.
If he leaves

I'll follow him
down a narrow street.
Look for us along the Rhone
singing, though I don't
know French.

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Copyright © 2018 Rhonda Pettit All rights reserved
from Riding The Wave Train
Dos Madres Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission