Every Saturday, after the concert halls closed,
Les Apaches meet to discuss music, poetry, prose.
Ravel, elegantly attired, moustache waxed, debonair,
Held a cigarette jauntily – ask your question if you dare!

Léon’s Indifferent One begins forming in rhyme.
Ravel seeks precision in the uncoiling of time,
each cog and wheel within a watch enslaved,
his only intimacy -- notes placed perfectly on the stave.

Léon creates a poem about a dark young stranger.
Ravel paints a languorous kiss from musical danger.
Both men imagine the moment, craving possibilities,
if all the world was love and life allowed such liberties.