Other people were always talking in the cafés,
the girls were young, the women were old,
the men were always just men.
Turenne to Bretagne, Bretagne to Charlot,
it’s good to walk slowly,
to feel what’s under your feet,
it’s good to breathe the heavysooted air,
to pass the men smoking in front of Le Progrès,
the dogs having their walks, les enfants.
On Rue Debelleyme the paintings hang jade and cyan,
an azure shining so alive it startles,
and the pigeons are lulling, a seduction . . .
careful what you’re gonna do.
Must I be abstemious. Must I be pure.
A woman enters summer leaving behind a past,
its fizzled magic. Salut says the sky.
The days go on and on, a diminishing bliss
seeping out of the horizon,
down by the river people are dancing,
a kind of sex in the open air,
and the birds have something to say
the moon has something,
the trash does even the rats.
Dear summer, increase my heat.
Dear summer, another pastis.
Another daybreak with full breach.
The days flip by and fleet the nights and back
on the bed again again again these finite pages the years.
But why grieve, you are breathing.