November

It's cold in the cemetery tonight, and the starlight through the bare tree branches lights everything black and white. Joanne and I sitting side by side on the tombstone of a soldier who died in France in 1917, my arm is around her waist and her head is resting on my shoulder. She's wearing my sweatshirt and it's way too big for her, it goes down to her knees. I open the bottle of wine and pour a little on the grave, for the man who died in a war I never understood. I hope he can taste it wherever he is, and that it makes him happy.

I pass the bottle to Joanne and she takes a sip, passes it back to me and I drink some. It tastes like cherries and death, with just a hint of immortality. Joanne takes another sip, pulls the sweatshirt hood down and shakes out her long blonde hair. She smiles up at me and I'm getting lost in her dark red smile. We try to look deeply into each other's eyes and crack up laughing, who are we kidding? I kiss her cheek, hug her and laugh. We clasp hands and lie back on the dead soldier's stone, looking up at Orion rising in the east. We don't talk, just pass the bottle back and forth in the quiet and the dark. Sometimes it's nice to be with someone you don't have to talk to....

When the bottle is finally empty I stand up slowly, stretch and look at the moon setting in the west. I pull Joanne to her feet, hug her tightly and we both laugh again. We look down the grassy slope toward the cemetery gates, and the St. Lawrence river beyond. The waves are rolling cold deep and green, rolling east toward the Gaspe, toward Fundy. Let's walk a little, Jo. Maybe we can sober up enough to take a walk down Rue St. Denis. I bet the Cafe Iroquois is still open, we can stand in Place Jacques Cartier and sing teenage death songs while you play your guitar and the tourists drop coins in my hat.

Just don't tell your cousin, she would never get it, so why hurt her?