Girl Smoking A Gauloise In The Rain Poem by Bernard Henrie

Rain streaks the casino windows
clean as a yellow tiger.

The croupier totals up
and asks about you. Outside,
the night is a silent purse thief.
Streetlights hum under their breath.

I'm drunk as a Rahv, I've seen
the last of you, thinning streets,
alabaster water pools and apes,
pasha's and satraps fat and rich.

An ivory moon opens in the clouds.
A peacock spreads its tail in the zoo.
Naked under a raincoat and clearing sky
a girl lights a Gauloise.
She'll spend the night in a poem
by André Breton, but I'll spend the night
alone, guess I've seen the last of you.

A marriage announcement next year,
no doubt, a photo of a handsome swell,
a pack of stiffs in tuxedos over bourbon
and ice cream.

But I've seen the last of you
in an emerald dress surrounded
by a dozen moustached boys,
your teeth white as cherry orchard.

The moon takes me into her arms.
A mother who has forgotten
a child in the bath.

Tomorrow I'll clear out, take that job
with the Tribune, a weather report says
I've seen the last of you.