share


Jules & moi

80% of success is showing up.

—Woody Allen

 

A morning of tiles, park benches & sun, green, un-

aggressive in mid-year, with books & the runaway jury of girls

off to the Indian Ocean, Madagascar, to islands, Maurice, Reunion—

then the arabesques of black iron doors, 1 to 9 ABCD (you have to know), stun-

ning, this hour. That atelier is a red awning opening, oh nothing, beckon-

ing to an impasse where Jonathan, the ladybug, moves side-

ways toward Stanislas, just another name, proves

we are here, Our Lady of the Cars, the Fields—Notre Dame des Champs.

To stone columns, where Madeleine meets magenta, (church not girl, not

my runaway jury of girls) as clouds part to Madura,

we move closer to the sky’s crux

up & back to where we began, unfamiliar, le Cardinal—sun starts

slanting by tables. This just happened: dreadlocks, and who

is Gus anyway & why isn’t he here with us—it’s the last cut of the scissors.

 


ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

is Paris Editor for Tin House magazine and is the author of Knock Knock (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010). Her poems, essays and interviews have appeared in or on PBS Newshour, The Guardian, The Rumpus, Post Road and other venues and numerous anthologies, including Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast; and Satellite Convulsions: Poems from Tin House. She lives in Paris, where she curates Shakespeare & Company Bookshop’s weekly reading series, and teaches creative writing and poetry at the American University of Paris.



READ NEXT

fiction

November 2012

Religion and the Movies

Aidan Cottrell Boyce

fiction

November 2012

When the Roman Empire ruled the world, you could make it work for you. The women, the hospitality. You...

fiction

Issue No. 8

The Lady of the House

Claire-Louise Bennett

fiction

Issue No. 8

Wow it’s so still. Isn’t it eerie. Oh yes. So calm. Everything’s still. That’s right. Look at the rowers...

poetry

April 2014

Obsolescence

Joseph Mackertich

poetry

April 2014

A lot of people tell me my voice is similar to that of the actor Christopher Walken. I don’t...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required