OVER A DARK GROVE

Over the dark grove
fighting the poisons
of false love
at the finish line
here in the Paris Marathon
of another generation
watching the quarter moon
to question every encounter
with my French girlfriend
under the stars over the Seine
midnight becomes the tree
where exiles are conceived
in day beds dreams
almost buried by the snow
yet an murmuring baby
emerges whole by the park
in a laurel crib smiling
in his stroller
who will become a poet
of the surreal
who speaks in two tongues
plays hide and seek
under hidden garden walls
watching as the winds rise up
from the dusty rain clouds
of a January first dawn
inhaling the snow flakes
round his eyelids
near the edge of the shore.

B.Z. NIDITCH is a poet, playwright and fiction writer. His work is widely published in journals and magazines throughout the world, including: Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Art; The Literary Review; Denver Quarterly; Hawaii Review; Le Guepard (France); Kadmos (France); Prism International; Jejune (Czech Republic); Leopold Bloom (Hungary); Antioch Review; and Prairie Schooner, among others. His newest poetry collection, “Everything, Everywhere,” is available from Penhead Press. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.