Pitched forward at the hips with sneakers
tied to his belt loops, a man roller skates by.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaHis large feet flop like dying fish,
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaso near to falling and yet he sings: your hair upon the pillow

like a sleepy golden storm and I remember a season spent lying in bed
under a skylight on the top floor of a stranger’s Parisian apartment

aaaaaaaaaaaaaasinging though my hair is almost black. Constitutionally incapable
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaof doing anything halfway I had fallen in love with a man

I did not respect. A man I did not even love.
Why has he found me here in Queens? Nothing stays

aaaaaaaaaaaaaafixed anymore. Someone waves and I wonder
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaif I know them. A mother climbs a tree, her daughter

cries, unable to reach her. I have one photo of this man
I did not love taken through a train window as I roll away.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaThe most wonderful thing we did together was watch
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaNotre Dame burn from a park above the city. In that brief second

no one knew what had happened. Now, let me ruin the moment: a worker
became careless with his cigarette high in the rafters. Why was it wonderful?

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaThe drama, the brightness, the possibility of a hollow
aaaaaaaaaaaaaain the midst of this calcified city. A place is free to become anything.

 

 

C. Francis Fisher