Monsieur Clermont

That August, in La France Profonde,
the frelons were out in force,
honey-gold cruisers of late summer air,

their poigniards sheathed. The heat
lapped at a sticky terrace table,
our observation post for village fictions —

Jean, his bench-saw snoring to the hornets,
a girl scraping her pans out to the hens,
that old man in his garden chair —

le petit vieux. We smiled, as if our smiles
could throw a tremulous lifeline
to one who seemed to have no need of saving,

a kindly ghost, a dream of summer silence,
the gentle answer to our drift of questions.
That last day, when Jean came for the keys —

Nos amitiés à votre père, monsieur —
he tapped his forehead, murmured ‘Verdun’,
carried our cases to our little Peugeot.

Yes, I remember growling hills,
flickers of white and violet light,
a cartwheel of bayonets trophied to the dark,

the way our farewell smiles, careful, elaborate,
glanced off that casemate of a skull
where Monsieur Clermont had been taken prisoner.