a parisian love song
à Paris. belle époque glistens in the rain, coral-color; terrace gardens dripping on my sweater-sleeves. the avenue is puddle and froth churned by taxi tires, squeezed by sodden mist. a gendarme’s dopplered siren whines with the gargle of a gutter and i spill the sugar as i shudder.
the Seine curves by its moss-festooned embankment, dull, water duller; a droplet seething in my coffee cup. ferries swallow mouthfuls and its patrons dine inside. autumn is that pensive season so i ask myself was all this worthwhile? after five thousand miles and forced smiles, after the rented bikes on uneven stone? after the lonely afternoons and irish sea monsoons that made my flight to paris turbulent and upset my stomach? can i even think, “i regret my choice”? no— she would hear the fissures in my voice.
to La Place. baltic wind and boredom stung and withered summer; bleaching marianne’s anarchist tattoos. i watch a man cough up his lung and spit it in the linden tree box in this city of smoke and gutters as a girl asks for directions and i stutter. (she was blonde and wearing black) i wish i was wine-drunk and running from the fascists. (she was worried about me then) safety floats in the evaporated air of the general’s decanter, eyed as winter comes and storehouse crumbs accelerate the ache. but beneath women’s spells, not mortar shells, i wither. when will the inside of my cheeks forgive her?
il fait mal. burnished boulevards assure me liberté but i want smother; a metro ticket papercut stinging on my palm. i don’t mean to grimace but the weather weighs on my untweezed brows and i glare at passers-by. the river-spray and shivered gray of clouds along the promenade pick and thrash me up into a neat café, where soft swing trickles from the mouths of postmodern threaded tapestries, all collage and no bombastic certainties.
au jazz bar. dress shirt looser on my shoulders, gaunt but subtler; cheekbones humming in the lamplight. the tanktop-wearing trumpet has monopolized the room the same way a woman in heels commands a subway tunnel. us beetles in our cellars snug, with dreams of dancing with junebugs.
i will show you fear when i am found. i’d rather run, run right into the ground than set fire to that photograph, black and white of her inserted in the breast pocket of my army jacket. scotch tastes better garnished with the graininess of memories; smoke inhales deeper with a lighter that she gave to me. i will show you the terror that comes after the gutter, after the shudder, after the certainty, after the reason of man fails and the parisian rain falls.