[Michael Cantor]

(Here's a villanelle-on-steroids I snuck into the long gone - and lamented - Eleventh Muse ages and ages ago.)

For Claire

I have begun to dream each night of Claire,
pale childhood ghost, her image not quite clear.
We were lovers once and young, and unaware.

Ash gray eyes, short-cropped-straw-light-near-white hair,
Breathless street waif look, so au courant that year.
I have begun to dream each night of Claire,

who found me at a bleak Bruxelles affair:
You’ve not yet been? It is, you know, so near.
We were lovers once and young, and unaware,

and drove all night to Paris on a dare:
We go? I know le tout Cite, my dear.
I have begun to dream that each night Claire

arrives with Muscadet, with fruits de mer -
fills my anxious mouth, and wipes away my fear -
she was my lover once, and young, and yet aware

that food and wine, and softly perfumed air,
would make my awkwardness soon disappear.
I have begun to dream. Each night now Claire

and I ascend to Sacre Coeur, her bare,
skin warm beneath a street-length cloak; and here
I am her lover, yes, and young, and unaware

that one day reveries of times this rare
will have an old man blink to fight a tear.
I have begun to dream each night of Claire;
we were lovers once and young, and unaware.