By the Metro steps, the couple won’t stop 
kissing. France—land of lusty embrace, 
sidewalk cafés where men turn their chairs

to stare at passing women. I’m attracted to power, 
said my friend Elyssa last year over lunch, 
explaining her preference for painters, 

carpenters, men wielding tools. We plucked 
what we wanted from a passing trolley—
Chinese dumplings and sauce, uncertain what 

we’d taste until the chopsticks reached our lips. 
It’s amazing what we can do with our mouths, 
the explorations they undertake, slick sounds 

formed with a flick of tongue against teeth. 
Mid-kiss in Paris, the woman by the Metro 
wears a miniskirt, and I can hear stern mothers 

the world over saying she should lower her hem, 
as if urges could be stifled by cotton-poly blend. 
In truth—no matter the color of our passports 

or skin—we’re born to enact this primal magnetism. 
Let them kiss. Who knows how long these lives
are promised? A waiter pours coffee into my cup. 

By the Metro, beneath a tree, the man and woman 
stand so close I can’t see the line between—Eve 
pouring herself into Adam, Adam falling into Eve.