The Parks
The Parks
Oh the parks of great European cities!
Flat, green, dusty lungs by which they breathe.
Everything ratchet, uncared-for, even
The villas like bad teeth. Here is where
The homeless find solace in being
Able to at least say where they are.
The Villa Borghese, the Jardin du Luxembourg…
The fountains babbling to themselves
In the middle of pools their words barely disturb,
An over-steeped black tea of leaves
That fell last fall, or the fall before…
Bad as they need the money, the homeless
Don’t dare reach in for the greening coins
Lest they damage the wishes of the children
Who tossed them. Pigeons totter around
Like old ladies on their way home from church,
Murmuring, “Hmm, hmm, let me see…”
And the long avenues that run off
Through colonnades of trees that are
Somehow Roman even in Paris,
The combed-over gravel gardeners
In green shirts rake. The statues that
Haven’t taken a step all their lives,
They’re so lonely! Couldn’t they be moved
A little closer to one another? But
What do I know? Maybe at night
They step down lightly from their pedestals
And go walking arm-in-arm through
The zebra-stripe shadow-and-moonlight.
Before dawn, they resume their poses,
Like a model who, after being taken
To the painter’s bed, sits down again
With difficulty, still atremble, so that
The painter berates her, whereupon
She quietens him with a scythe-like sweep
Of her eyes, which, by the way, you can see
At the Galleria or the Louvre,
But that would mean you’d have to leave the park.