Best Pens

Once I'm sure there's no one else around I
climb, spider-silent, toward my treehouse, held like
a saucer on fingertips in the middle limbs of the oak.
I wonder who's there. A light is on. Knotting a rope, I let
myself down, skirting the roof, hugging the window edge.
I see, clumped on the bed, my antique cigarette case, my
opera, my best pens, my first edition Borges, Lindt
chocolate, and Janácek CD already half inserted into
a bag. You pause, listen, then bend to your writing again
using my best Parker fountain pen. I stare at the limp
tusk of your ponytail, your glossy leggings, suave
intelligent legs. Watch as you fall in love with a moth.
Phillip Glass and Richard Serra would go to La Coupole
each night just to watch Giacometti eat his supper. My
opera ends in La Coupole and begins with Baudelaire's
Club des Hachichins in his small attic apartment on
the He St. Louis. Maybe you're him, Baudelaire, here to
inspect my work. You turn off the light and I watch you
emerge, squeezing your bag through the narrow doorway.
Down you go, surprisingly fast, and I follow, slithering.
Just as you touch the ground, I jump. Someday we'll
tell our children how we met.