Page 20 - Poems

of each, text-book or mutant. And to all the stock
And Before always begins with you; with you, me
and crêpes that Friday at Beaubourg. I leave you
at nightfall, both sated with buckwheat delights,
with shared dance histories, both featherweight
from fresh victories — an award, a film, scabbard-
less triumphs over divas of neighbouring realms.
A Lazarusian almost-Last Supper, you will label it
soon, in pitch-dark jest (& full biblical disregard).
Niki de Saint-Phalle’s pregnant naiad (yes, she
of the polychromatic bosom, the nipples silent
across fall and winter) gazes unblinking while we
dither over stretching legs and musings, not nearly
done, with a detour through Marais. But no, other,
older friends await in the 19th: we part ways on Rue
du Renard, behind Centre Georges Pompidou.

Rambuteau
You stroll eastwards. I head north via Line 11, diving
into a seat beside three blue-and-grey stripe-tied
connoisseurs of game consoles, rapt notching
the virtues of Wii U, Xbox One & PlayStation 4
on a window misted by earnest breaths.

Arts & Métiers
A springy-haired young man in carmine
circumaural headphones covers his eyes
with a quiet hand and weeps.

République: Change here for 3, 5, 8 & 9. Tangerine, tangerine will sign the course of my lifeline.

On knees abutting mine dance a woollen flat
cap and grey leather gloves; the owner spells
aloud touch-typing dispatches on a new, silver
telephone, a single quivering letter at a time:
his eyes hold the sparkle his fingers have no more.

Jacques Bonsergent
And just across the aisle, a barely-teenage couple sample
kisses, discover the calligraphy of courtship: an inky index
finger drawing whorls in fuchsia from the well
of a neck, while unlearned, eager lips gild the down
stroke from cheekbone to cleft on chin, and his hand cursives
desire in two scripts along her stocking-clad shin.

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