Remembering Paris, 1978

I’m in Paris with you in the grey mist dross of dawn.
A clash of dishes from below our room,
the thwack of blind Yve’s stick as he leaves his,
the price list behind the door tell of spent passions.

Scent of fresh flowers, rotten vegetables, stale cannabis
waft from Saint Denis.
Château d’Eau wakes and so do we and go in search of
œufs-au-plat.
You insist on drinking un grand crème as
no Frenchman would do.

Swirls of water eddy under our
first bridge of the day.
Galleries-style Parisiennes pass with
powdery complexion and pert lips
then squabbling children in the bateaux-mouche
squeak like popped hydrogen.

The Rive Gauche is our cornucopia;
a mix of newfound love and liberty
rushes like la circulation at Étoile,
loud and dangerous with the heady
flow of all that pumping blood.