Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Paris seems different now. The old faces
Have gone or are lost. Hazel undresses
For bed, knowing Dunne is in the hot bath
Having a good soak. She listens as she

Removes her dress and lets it fall. Water
Splashing. Dunne has spent the whole day at her
Side carrying and fetching, attending
To needs, even when at the restaurant

She fussed and fretted about the meals and
The waiter’s slowness. She can hear Dunne now
Humming in the bath, her voice a gentle
Touch when far from home. Hazel waits and looks

Around the room. Pictures hang here and there.
The wallpaper flowered; the light tamed by
A white shade. She puts on her nightgown, picks
Up her clothes, and puts them on the chair by

The bed. Dunne can sort them later. She climbs
Into bed, the sheets cold, the single round
Pillow. She lies and listens to Dunne’s hum,
The voice settling like a mother’s hug.

The other bed where Dunne will sleep lies all
Open, the bedspread drawn back. They’d seen some
Of the sights of the City: the Eiffel
Tower, the Sacre Coeur, and that old

Restaurant on La Rive Gauche. How Dunne fussed,
Touching and fetching, speaking the odd word
Of French, muttering the odd fuck beneath
Breath. She smiles laying her head to the hard

Pillow’s touch. Hard to call her Dunne when there
Are others about, but Dora seems so
Familiar, too close, too friendly. Yet
She feels she ought, at least while in public,

Shutdown what separates: Class, breeding, sense,
Education. Dunne sings now in the bath,
Some lullaby, motherly like some huge
Caress, like mother’s touch or lover’s kiss.