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.