Apres Vous

The love letters came from Barcelona

from the south of France

from Oberlin

Stuffed with photographs 

of you 

looking bright

in a field of yellow rapeseed
or in the green grasses of the antiquated college

or loose papers with your sketches of statues 

and altars 

I imagined you sitting on a worn bench

sipping absinthe
under the prudent April sun 

and jealousy began to fill the cavity under my breast 

as the glass touched your lips