Paris Photograph

Dusk blue.
Down the Rue
Soufflot, Eiffel
Tower shimmers
like champagne
on a candlelit table.
I am twenty-three,
American, camera
clicking at the distant 
landmark, pedestrians 
cross cobblestones at Place 
du Panthéon, my girlhood dreams 
meeting destiny. City of light, city 
of love—beside me, my boyfriend 
waits: older, German, he’d been there 
before. A weight leadening my hot air balloon.
The photograph a monument to the moment,
a composition illustrating a life lesson learned—
One should never see Paris with the wrong companion.