Back to Issue Three.

18 in Paris

BY ELIZABETH FALCON

 

Along the Seine the boys
dance like cockerels

& croon hymns to the galaxies
behind Orion’s

belt.  They drum
the night soul

out of its pink pink
shell & block

all seventeen bridges
this race of androids

can’t stop crossing.
The boys call to me

in French. I don’t speak
French. I have fallen from the sky

& they want to sew me
a dress of clouds.

They know I hear
the singing.

My mother appears, a lifesaver
hurtling toward a girl being pleasured

by a treacherous swim.  The boys
laugh, comfortable birds

out of the reach
of any death.

The laughter
like rotting meat.

Elizabeth Maria Falcón graduated from the University of Arizona with an MFA in poetry. She is a teaching artist, makes sourdough bread, and loves strategy games.