“I Nearly Married a Frenchman” (1963)

She pities him

into oblivion

Jean-Pierre,

She smells

Of soap and deodorant

the lambs are bleating, the cars come bobbing up from their beds in the sand

my skin is continually damp with our strange, sodden lovemaking

to hell with France

*

She shivers on deck: Are you cold, they ask, did he touch you, they ask

Did you suffer, they ask