Come To Us

by Cristina Nehring (March 2024)

Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes, by Marie Denise Villers, 1801

 

 

It’s all a fake
I cannot make
A life without liquor.

It’s like dancing without music;
It’s like singing without notes.
I love my child

I love my man
Too far away
And with too many priorities

Thousands of miles separate us
Los Angeles to Paris
He visits me sometimes

My girl and myself.
But it is not enough.
My heart aches

My frame quakes
And yet he will not come.
His family is huge

Mine is small
My mother across the ocean
My wordless girl

At my side.
She’s a pleasure
But no measure

For a man I can talk to
And with whom I can share my pains
And my joys

We are not merely toys
We are beings with needs
And a load of love to offer

Please, my two darlings,
Let’s come together
And deal with foul and fair weather.

Together we’re stronger
And will surely live longer
Than if we stay separate.

Love, come join your girls,
We’re full of whirls
And twirls

We want only you
To take into our arms
No alarms, no more liquor
Just bliss.

 

Table of Contents

 

Cristina Nehring published The Child Who Never Spoke: 23 1/2 Lessons in Fragility on October 24, 2023. She is also the author of A Vindication of Love which made the front page of the New York Times Book Review as well as of two books in French. She writes for the Atlantic, Harper’s, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She lives in Paris with her daughter.

Follow NER on Twitter @NERIconoclast

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