Three AM: three dozen or so friends we’d met hours ago
Filled a bar to capacity
You’d learned school French for a year
Ordered 36 beers
We all cheered your audacity

Asleep on the cubicle floor
We all tried the door
And assumed it was some fumbling junkie
Well, you had gone missing before for an hour or more
So it just hadn’t sunk in

If I knew then what I knew ten hours later
I would have waited

Bleary-eyed, freezing and shocked as they unscrewed the lock
You slurred “merci” then “mercy”
Kicked through the picturesque rain to the edge of the Seine
No-one knew where you were

See, if I knew then what I knew ten hours later
I would have waited

Broken ribs hurt when you walk
Red chalk on wet café blackboards
Taxis slow and then go
Their red eyes looking back at you stumbling

You missed the bus, we lost touch
You don’t talk to me much
When you do it’s with kindness
The last time we met there were tears
You said “Mate, it’s been years
Can we leave this behind us?”

But I knew then what I know ten years later
I should have waited

Oh, the details don’t matter
It was such-and-such plaza
Some avenue, maybe
Rue something? Rue something