After Mathilde looks at Manech, and looks
at him, and looks at him, after we see
La Fin, credits roll, and screen matches nooks
of darkness inside my lenses, finds me
seated alone in black room, I decide
this happens: She stays the weekend with him.
Alone in his shadowed bedroom, they glide
like great waves uniting, sleep at peace within
their sacred arms. She covers her right breast
with his hand, like the old days. Each time they
make love, distant memory glints, then crests,
then glints again, like the lighthouse beam’s sway
above them as they played years ago, sly
children laughing, echoing the gull’s cry.
Roger Armbrust
January 4, 2008
