Attention, Monsieur! I am in Paris.

AU REVOIR BY SHANNON MARIE KELLY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 27

Attention, Monsieur! I am in Paris

Spilling gin, clinking cracked porcelain teacups,

With café connoisseurs, blowing in and out,

Of doors filled with Hemingway.

I wrap my hands around bars in asylums

With Van Gogh, wrap my teeth around ankles,

Wrap canvas jackets around hysterics, hissing, spitting.

I make trouble in the country,

I am a bore to urbanites.

I am quietloud, scarynice, nicelyscared.

I want to knick knack wack Paddy

And break her bones.

I worship in my own glittering temple

In light-filled fragrance fog,

Make confessions on paper, to crowds,

Give sermons in desks, cars,

Through telephones, explosive.

I greet the breaking blues of swelling suns

In bedrooms with Chopin who, don’t stop,

Won’t stop, playing, preludes and polonaises,

Pressing chords into my spine,

Hammering on my tightly wound strings.

I send off my Good-Byes with the expatriates,

‘Cause it’s a big enough town,

And I’m not so good at sharing.