April in Paris, chestnuts in blossom

MUSIC BOX

It was Paris
when I loved you
& children

ran the streets,
we’d unlock hands
to shirk them,

then over dinner,
under ripe
chestnut flowers,

talking future-talk,
we promised aloud
never to have them.

Our vows
would choke us
by December

and since then
it’s never been
as it was in April—

I never met it face-to-face,
never a warm embrace
‘til April in Paris.  

Oh—what have I done?