Beautiful Chocolate Milk

A bubbly big breasted woman, a flight attendant,
met my aunt, another flight attendant and me at the airport, a colorful map dotted with museums and monuments,
and took off through a crowd of welcome signs.

The metro was crowded and the tunnel walls were faded red brick, little boys played accordion music and stuck out their sweaty palms for spare coins.

Our hotel, with its narrow twisted staircase
We carried our suitcases up five flights to our room in the
attic. A room with a slanted ceiling and red painted walls
You couldn’t stand up straight in the bathroom.

We took off for the night and wore out our shoes.
In the morning I woke up to company downstairs.
The bubbly big-breasted woman was back.

She brought. . .

A boy, with beautiful chocolate milk skin,
and his uncle, old hunched talkative company.
The company stood-up and smiled and shook my hand.

The friendly old man hugged the bubbly woman
and they sat with my aunt. I sat with beautiful chocolate milk. He was from Washington. We buttered croissants with sweet cream and jelly. The coffee was little blue cups of espresso with sugar cubes.

We went, and the chocolate milk followed me
we visited the wide blue marble staircases leading up to a Winged Victory where I tripped on the slippery marble and steadied myself on chocolate milk. we visited the crowded courts of Versailles and waited in a ten-mile line to pay for a piss.

Squished in-between the talkative man and chocolate milk.
The man told me his life story and it was the saddest
he told me he was there December 10th on Normandy beach
only something like thirteen Americans survived
He hasn’t left France since. He had a daughter with
the bubbly woman half his age. His daughter
is a bit of milk chocolate and the boy
her cousin.

That night somewhere out on the Seine, the river surrounding the bell towers, there was a cocktail party, there was my cocktail dress with sequences of the moon through its stages, and there was music and flight attendants and champagne lots of champagne the chocolate milk had a gallon I had none, I was in a consensual state.

We crossed a bridge guarded by ten-foot tall Greek woman
to the remains of a ferries wheel from a legendary fair.
We sat right under that symbol of Paris my legs crossed
as I leaned close to him. His arm around my shoulders and hand on my leg.

A man tried to sell us lighters and key chains
in the likeness of the tower. He pretended he didn’t understand “no” and kept on hassling us.
Chocolate Milk breathed his champagne breath on my face
I closed his mouth with mine when he tried to talk.
He was to unintelligible to stand.

“I was just about to ask you how you felt about making-out in public,” He said.
I shrugged and we went to a park, behind the tower.
I still felt under it, it towered so high.

I sat on his lap, he folded back my cocktail dress
and told me I was “a hot girl.” while he rubbed my thighs.
I snorted and held back a burst of giggles.
That boy was so beautiful, but he did yoga
and dressed to damn well and had been with too many girls.

My aunt, the flight attendant had invited him along
on to the valley. I told her I’d rather not.
Leave it behind and it will all be just as
sweet and manipulative as it started out.

He let me wear his black jean jacket while we walked back
to the party and was very disappointed when I said, “I won’t be coming back, chocolate milk.”