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.