Life Class: A Sketch

In Paris, perhaps. On wet cobbles.
Jean Rhys, walking alone at night,
fragile and wispily dressed,
without a sou, past streets
of lit cafés to a meeting place.

Cold to the bone, she has it all planned:
when they go home, she will fall
at his knees, look up like a child
and make him understand
that he cannot abandon her,

she is lost in a strange land.
But his grey eyes are indifferent
as the North Sea to her need -
she knows if she tries to plead
her words will drown.

So she smiles instead.
...