The Year in Paris

Bluebeard wheels down the street
on his bicycle, spokes a glittering
blur

the haunches of his six wives rest
beneath the flowers, the pink,
red, purple circling over them

the year in Paris was grey
alternating with red, behind
the barricades the students

made a great noise, the
fashion that spring for
insurrection, a fine show

for simple, simpering tourists clutching guides and
leather valises, thin volumes of
poetry, letters of introduction, letters of credit,

tearing off pieces of scenery with
American teeth, gnashing them
into a fine paste to spread on paper

and still they slumber, still
with arms crossed decorously
across their chests, entombed

beneath the evergreen tree, looped
over with electric orbs as we
wait for the birth of our

saviour, the air is brittle-
cold, her breath cracks it,
her boot, too, on the thin

skim of ice in the parking lot,
hands clasped behind the
green fence circling round

as Bluebeard speeds past again,
on his way to another assignation,
taciturn, close-mouthed, hard-eyed