The most intense love that
I have ever experienced
lasted the length of
a red
light
on a
street corner of Antibes.

Four lanes apart, with
a bridge
        painted
               white
                    suspended

above a dark lake
as ephemeral as the moment
of awakening.

A cavalry charges between us--
dusty Volvos in need of
an oil change and sparkling new
Citroens with just a
smattering of rain water
drying on the windshields.

The cicadas continue to drone
in the artificially lit background,
hidden under the polyphony
of chattering pedestrians
pressing the walk button
again
  and again
        and again.

And in the wink of
a color blind eye,
it is over.
Yet now I can say with my
head held high
that I have lived
because I have seen
and have been seen.