you are a jester and
use the ash
from my feet for
your paint

canvasses stretching
across the grand salons
you are so large and
well known
bloated and expanding in this

dethroned roses and black doves
scatter the streets
having laced gypsies
speak and prophesize of
destiny and fate

Paris
some say it is grey
and hide the red
they live, visit and push against

the wet alleys
where they walk so brisk and curtly
“-just business, just business please hurry,”
…to

buy their cassava and saka-saka
slipping quickly into the barber shops
merengue, soukous and whiskey to ease the day away

home is easier that way
the metro blurs by
art and red

it shakes below the cobbler’s bench
who says

“You have beautiful bones,”

you lie for a living
but you are sweet still

and can pull me
out of dead days
when the skeletons parade
down the boulevards and trenches
smelling so vervain beautiful