by Grace C. Bennett
To walk Parisian streets is to
Sail with Vitus Bering,
Rum casks loosed atop boards
Stained with salt within vicious
Blows of sick and yellowed sea,
Pacific to Arctic an ill to poisoned freedom;
If only memory
In this case
Were an exaggeration.
The undulant expanse of dented hues,
Scraped, peeled, battered blues,
Interrupted only by juxtaposition—
A woman, Harem pants tucked beneath her
Forehead on the pavement,
Move that cup, they’d glower
To cross the cold bridge
Toward the Eiffel Tower and
Trod the eggplant scarf at their feet
Moved along by a cold November breeze
And we passed, too, alongside them,
Her coat just a ripple of the Seine if that’s
The view one decided on;
Never mind it, we queued to climb those steps
And dined warmly in an alley two blocks down
Coming back full to see
Woman! curled like a bow so inconvenient
She, to block like that the path all day and night;
I hoped she hadn’t died there.
Category: Poetry, SNHU Creative Writing, SNHU online creative writing, SNHU Student