71.

The cars on the rail line are stacked up

And through the electrification wires, I

Can barely see the sky. So much depends

On the sky. Dust hovers over the warehouses

Near Avignon station; spare rails lie

Down to the left side. Piles of earth sit

In mounds. The trackside Carrefour is backwards

Caravans on the left have a free view

Of the TGV. The bones of Petrarch

Share some of the traces of this soil.

We have parts of us that are millions

Of years old. Love and poetry are hard

To talk about in those terms. You smile

Although you, once here, are so far away now.