Paris was a room with the windows open because we thought heat was the emergency. The radio said they would never reach the river. We believed the radio. We believed the river. We believed the coat on the chair meant morning. Verse 2 He called me kid as if the war were older than I was. I let him. It is easier to be a postcard than a woman with a husband who might not be dead. Chorus Paris was a room. Paris was a bottle and a map we didn’t unfold. Paris was your mouth saying last train as if trains were loyal. Verse 3 We walked as if the city were a secret we had invented. Chestnuts. Bad coffee. A balcony too small for two chairs. You said we would drink in the south until the world made sense. I said yes because yes was the only language I had left that wasn’t a list. Bridge 1 Then the letter. Not poetry. A location. A pulse. Victor alive in a place with a name I had to learn how to pronounce without shaking. Verse 4 An hour is a country. An hour is long enough to choose which life you will ruin and too short to stay and watch the ruin happen. Chorus 2 Paris was a room. I left a note on the table that told the only truth I could carry: I cannot go with you or see you again. I did not write the rest. The rest would have put me on the train. Bridge 2 (quieter) I have rewritten that note a thousand times since. In every version I am braver or crueler. In no version do I stay and still be the woman Victor can use to stay alive. Final chorus Paris was a room with the windows open. I closed them when I left. You will say I vanished. I say I was claimed by a letter and I answered it because some claims are older than a coat on a chair. Tag June ended. The Germans did not. Neither did you.
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