Last Night

If one sits on the steps of Sacré Coeur

to see the city after dusk,

one sees, too, in the cold, each traveler:

the silk-scarved men, distinct with musk;

the ladies in flared miniskirts and tights,

most often black or midnight blue,

occasionally punctuated — brights,

or puce, or some unlikely hue.

One sees the leathered packs with cigarettes

on precipices blowing smoke.

One listens to musicians finger frets

for famous songs, of rock or folk,

And smells some bitter andouille on the wind,

grim and scraggly grass in cracks,

the perspiration of the olive-skinned,

or warmly melted votive wax.

Green macaron in hand, its mellow paste

the flavor of pistachio –

like olive skin one cannot touch nor taste –

in vain, one fights with vertigo.

The tourists photographing from a tier

below, curved girlfriends striking poses,

roaming vendors proffer bottled beer

and blood-red, long-stemmed roses.

As twilight deepens, one will then observe

deposit, these distracted brash,

the emerald-drained merchandise they serve

in bags hung on the fence for trash.

Perhaps unnoticed, wholly by surprise,

a bottle will miss the bag, and break,

its broken shards outspread like distant eyes

which cause some hazel heart to ache.

Upturned and staring from the chilly stone,

the pieces render one aware

although surrounded, one is yet alone,

by means of their green, absent glare.

Attempting to escape from such a glower,

one stands, walks to the west, the sight,

the tall seduction of the Eiffel Tower,

alluring and aligned with light.

And from those heights, perhaps one then will wonder

in silence, what it would be like

to fall beyond the fence, and tumble under

this platform — plentiful — to strike

some unidentified allée, to splatter

the ground of Sacré Coeur beneath,

and if the dizzy mind would even matter

to brittle bones, or grinding teeth.