At lunch
I heard her story
From an old woman
Who had been her friend.
She came from somewhere
Far to the North,
Was it maybe Sweden?

She could not shift her car
Into reverse.
Instead of struggling
She asked any passerby
To back her up
Into a different direction.

She lived a life of definition,
Not a life by definition,
She threw the rules away.

While she was in the French Resistance,
Her husband told her
The next time she would see him
Was in his uniform.
One day they brought him to her
Just as he sad,
His very last smile
For her
Upon his lips.

She knew les secrets de la beauté.
She was a mistress of a ballet school in Paris.
She danced in the Foliies Bergere,
A rose tatoo upon her inner thing.

She came to Spain,
An avid communista,
She gave her heart, her soul,
But, had she really given her body
To Paul Robeson ?
Rumors swirled about her
Like the smoke in the bars
Where she danced on the tables laughing.

She loved her broken Spanish house
Upon a mountain,
A crack in the roof
From stem to stern.
The ceiling sagged.
Not to worry,
It never fell.

If the roof had fallen in,
She would have lived there anyway,
Counted the stars by night,
Watched birds fly over by day,
Danced in the rain.

What happened to this woman ?
Is she alive or dead ?
Does her spirit wander
Still breaking all the rules ?
Does she visit her broken Spanish house
Upon a mountain
Waiting for the ceiling to fall,
For the joy of rising from her bed
And dancing in the rain ?