from london, we ribboned to paris by train, curling into the station as twilight bloomed shell pink and stepping inside the living dream of strolling these streets with the baby we were already in love with the last time, the first time, we strolled these streets.
i won't remember a lot of hours of my life, but i will remember these: dimpled hands upon croissant. moon twinkle on the seine. roses in high bloom drooping from their bushes like bells that might jingle. falafel. cherries. golden hour picnics. bouquets of friends. flicker of django reinhardt's "brazil" in the distance. the painter at easel, just after the rain. dickens and proust in the tuileries, full-leaf and hemmed in peonies. francis lafayette blowing kisses from the perch of his pram, the angel of delight of france and everyplace. a single thought that leaves me breathless: in all of his life, the places and things he first knew from the hill of his mother's hip. a carousel. a ballerina. the others we want to know and name and hold, an incantation, an invitation. butter so thick it was mistaken for brie. water lilies. a red balloon.
she is so many love songs, and she is our love song, la vie en rose, a poem in flowers and stone. paris.
