and then there’s this picture of you in Paris and it’s nothing at all like Cartier-Bresson’s photograph of Sartre on the Pont Alexandre the dim silhouette of Les Invalides in the background his right hand lost in his overcoat pocket his lips pursed tightly around the stem of the pipe smoking on a damp Paris day grim and contemplative, his lazy eye gazing off down the Seine, away from the man he’s standing with you’re not on a bridge you’re on the roof of the Pompidou Center leaning on the railing, Montmartre rising behind you you don't wear an overcoat and your right hand holds loosely to the strap of your handbag you don't smoke a pipe but a cigarette is notched in the fingers of your left hand because you love being in Paris where everyone smokes, even pregnant women smoke not a damp day, a grimy summer sun drips through the Paris haze you don’t have a lazy eye you wear those sunglasses and both eyes are looking right at the camera and you’re laughing and there is nothing in the flesh curving around your open mouth to indicate resistance or pain, complaint or regret, disappointment you’re laughing at something I said, a strand of words we’ve both long since forgotten, and if I could recall what I said on that rooftop that day in Paris I could say it again and coax that same laugh out onto your face I could just say it, repeat those words, and that laugh would return, right? and if I said something that would tease laughter anywhere, then it’s simple—say it again—anywhere and if I said something that would tease laughter only in Paris, then it’s simple—go back to Paris and say it again It’s simple, right? __________ "Everyone Smokes in Paris" appeared in the January 2008 issue of Thick with Conviction. Home / Escapee / Stories / Poems / Non-fiction / Contact / Links |