Reports from
Paris
1. "So"
Since drinking hurt her stitches, it was more out of habit than anything else
she still went to the cafe every day at 2. It was the same with alcohol
as coffee or tea but at least with that by the third round came the numbness of
an internal winter.
The stitches did not effect her beauty as much as she thought but her self
consciousness projected her unease outwards and so influenced how people saw
her before they quickly looked away.
Anytime the tink-plink Basie notes of the bells hanging over the door announced
someone coming in, she went to war with herself, not wanting anyone to join her
but also hating that moment of rejection.
I sometimes liked a woman who looked sad or tired and to me, her injuries only
enhanced her appeal.
2 o'clock. Children let out of school early for some reason and businessmen in
town for a trade show monopolize most of the tables so that people must double
down with strangers. I nod with my chin at the empty chair across from her, she
shrugs her shoulders and paints the tips of her ears a bright red.
We talk, she likes hearing about how being an artist is nothing like how it is
portrayed in the movies. It takes her mind off of her own problems and
allows her to laugh softly to herself as she is sure it could not be that bad.
The next day even though there are now open tables we sit together again. We
dance around me doing her portrait, I am not shy to ask but to have motive
misconstrued. We start meeting at my bar instead of the cafe. We set a day for
me to do her portrait.
"Do you mind if I bring my boyfriend?"
I did not.
For some reason I always left first wherever we met , it was how she wanted it.
She turned on her stool towards me and squinted for a minute, then crinkled her
nose and almost smiled. Her arms were over my shoulders as she went to kiss me
goodbye. At the last moment she intentionally shifted so my lips brushed a
stitch. I noticed it smelled faintly of ozone and the water in one of the
meatier types of oysters as eaten on a warm day accompanied by a cool dry
white.
2. "Master"
It was not what the notes that she left me under the statue said that meant
anything to me but the long cut she received on her shin while jumping the
fence to do so that held currency. she would get that look in her eye and
regardless of where we were, roll up the leg of her pants or dress, point to
the scab-scar and say:
"Your signature. "
3. Tete de
poisson: The Corsage
Walking the fish market w/Louise
as they set up. A man originally from Sicily takes a clever to a large tuna.
With the first Cleve, blood spurts onto the apron in the shape of one perfect
red flower, it is as it has always been. It shows that like his ancestors he
knows what he is doing and also a portent of good luck, well, for somebody.
"Will you buy me a flower?"
"I need some coffee."
"Not there, my cousin owns that
place."
In one day and a three hour train ride
it would be as if I were in a different country.
- Wayne H.W Wolfson 2016
wwolfson@aol.com
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