XXLove letters   

 

When you got your first A,

 

We pretended to be antique hunters that prowled through antique stores,

Well-equipped thick horn rimmed four-eyes profit monsters,

We searched for mahogany chests and sideboard cabinets,

We spotted the monarchy treasures,

 We methodically checked a fauteuil a la Louis the Sixteenth,

We inspected the back, the carved details, the fabric,

As a chair the king was perfect,

Nothing was damaged,

Nothing was missed,

He was allowed to rule waiting for floods to sweep his tapisserie kingdom away,

We looked for the answer,

You could or you couldn’t see exactly what I saw,

Under my breath I muttered,

 ‘You wanted to meet a ghost,

Go ahead,

Here we are,

She is somewhere near,

Do you see her?

It’s a ‘who are you’ test,

Where is she?’

‘She sits on the floor near the Empire sofa,

She wears a robe,

I cannot see her face,

She hugs a pillow,

It has medieval motifs,

It is what I can see,

It is too dim to see the details’,

‘It’s one of a kind, Monsieur,

Mademoiselle,

The worming voice was persistent,

 It kept crawling up our backs,

‘It’s a unique piece of the glorious past’,

‘It’s not my style’,

‘We have industrial steel cabinets’,

‘Some other time,

Thank you’,

I didn’t say ‘WOW’ but I was surprised,

I was amazed,

You instantly saw her,

I had never seen her to act like this,

She was lost in the forest of tapered legs,

She sat on the floor like a scared beast,

She wore a printed silk charmeuse robe,

Hugged a medieval toile de jouy pillow,

‘Tonight she has something in mind,

We’ll never know,

She is unusually silent,

The last time I saw her,

She dropped a Limoges plate,

Let leave her alone,

Let’s go,

Bonsoir, Monsieur,

Merci beaucoup, Francoise’.