This seems to have been further refined since I last saw it (and I may not have seen the final draft at D.E.). It's a superb villanelle. The sentiment is handled with great skill as well, and one can't easily forget whose work this is.
Nothing like driving all night (to the City of Light, among other places) together to put a fix on you for life.
By the way, when I said in my reply (back then) that this was "spare" in comparison to the poet's other work, it's possible that I was (also) influenced by what I now see as the paring-down quality of the repetends. A villanelle, like a song with refrains, allows one to linger over thoughts, see their relationships with one another more, and move both backward and forward in time so as to entice it to stand still a little longer. There is less quantity and more depth when it's done well.
"'Memory lane'--that dreadful neighborhood we all end up in": ha! That's such a scintillating line, you should write a poem for it, Rhina.
Terese
[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited November 30, 2004).]
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