And she’s back!

Let me off the Island.

Rail tracks snaking — untangling at the points like a vipers nest, two abreast — towards the edge of the island

Sensing freedom, their purpose hardening into iron to support the train and ease its plunge under the sleeve of water that separates reason from entitlement…

To Paris — with haste!

Get me off the island of middling greens and mauves where the mot du jour is always “mild”.

Carry me to the definitive contrast of skin-crisping heat and chilly shaddow — the cataract glare and the cold blue deep of the Med beyond the bouys…

But that’s tomorrows treat.

Tonight, we have Paris where nothing can mask the sweet smell of sex permeating the Boulevards this warm July evening -

concentrating around iced glasses of Aperol Spritz, under cafe awnings and filtering out the disdainful curl of smoke from a Gitane.

There’s always more than one way to skin a cat.