To walk, amble, stride, stand on the Pont Neuf
to stare into Seine sliding around the point
of the Ile de la Cite on an Autumn afternoon
to wander idly lanes in Les Marais, to chance
upon medieval edifice or Roman bath or both
and pay the fee to view the Lady and the Unicorn
in its darkened room ah where's the loom
that shuttled six tapestries and who had money
to hang them? Pre-Norman kings your heads
are double-sized rubble in garden wall to outlast
revolution's rabble who might have broken your
already severed heads to unrecognizable bits
though we do not recognize other than that you
exist together in the restored refrigeratorium
we drop into rabbit holes, wave our Navigo cards
over purple swirl eh voila we surface where
we don't know where we are but do not care.
L'Opera Garnier hurts my eyes - too marble
too chandeliered too high the grand foyer
too tiled the floors though a blacony glimpse
of the opera hall ceiling settles me -
Marc Chagall no folderall - Swan Lake
and Tour Eiffel. The urine reek not only
when I seek le toilette it permeates it all
we do not gasp nor hold our noses but stare
until we have to leave to breathe. Shuttle out
through gift shop with its luminous ballerinas
to plug in at home. Along the marble flank
"What's this?" a woman with a mouth of golden
teeth holds forth a ring we must have dropped
she insists - oh yes this bit is still alive
I open my coin purse that spills a one
and two cent coin that send her off, disgusted.