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I AM WALKING DOWN A STREET IN PARIS
by Susan Pilewski

I am walking down a street in Paris whose name I won’t pronounce
Because I never galvanized my soft palate.
Because I took Spanish in high school and even now all I can do is ask if Juan is home
And order una cerveza
I will hold my own name in my mouth
Let it melt like a sugar cube plucked from a blue clay chicken
Let it splinter like ice falling from a garage roof in March.
I will hold my own name on this street I won’t pronounce and revel in the fact
That no one knows I’m even here.
Not God, or President Chirac, or my sister, who I would usually ring to say
Guess where I’m calling from…
I am walking down a street in Paris near the opera house and it is like the movies
And I might be Ingrid Bergman
but I could never make goodbye sound as sorrowful as she,
Not when you’re from Flushing.
But today I am not from Flushing because I am walking down a street in Paris
Past what I had dismissed as fantasy
And there really are baskets of bread and flowers and good hard cheese
And there really are glasses of dark wine in outdoor cafes
And there really are moments when you gratefully lose your tour group and step out
Into the waiting arms of a strange street without thinking about what its like to feel lost—
Dangling your passport over the smoky open mouth of a manhole .
I am a tourist.
I am a ghost.
I am phosphorescent dust strewn along the landscape
A primal wave churning clusters of algae and seahorses in my wake.
I am walking down this street in Paris whose name I won’t pronounce
Past Mezozoic trees and stagnant water
Past parcels of Italian loafers set on fire.
Past someone who might be Kitty Carlilse.
And I smile striding past a red wrought iron door
I have never seen before, knowing if I sunk my teeth in
They would rip straight through.

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