14h53

The city mumbles low through the daylight, sounds

as if you ought to be happy in it. The lovers

spangle l’Esplanade des Invalides at lunch-time, too bright to look at,

crack their soft insides open under blue.

Slim trees hold themselves against the blowing hours.

On the Pont Alexandre-III, I see tourists’ cameras take memories,

click click blur those squinting pedestals,

detach the color of the horses from their anger. I want to know

is this gilt or gold, what flickering bridges

hold us up beneath.

PRÉVISIONS MÉTÉO

Today le septième stretched its jowls,

licked its whitish rocks, the cheeks of its banks,

swallowed its dusts and spat them in the Seine.

Three-lobed leaves, bits of brown twigs.

They swirled in the green, sucked at the teeth

of the algae, everything sank

after the bateaux-mouches. And the green

glass bottles cracked into emeralds, chips,

and the traffic sounded gentle and

there were too many birds in the sky. What a foule.

Lovers leaned together in the sandwich sunshine,

scarf touching scarf, and strung about their hydra necks

was happiness.

Buildings assumed the light would last,

crumbled into gravel and refraction. On

the buses, old men sit in shadows

and watch nothing.