Hey there, you two in black, sitting on the parapet, leave your little islands
Look up from your phone, your book
Come closer.
Look up from your phone, your book
Come closer.
She is the only one watching. She? Who? The nun with her Reebok bag. She sees, she hears. Can you not feel it? You, the man with your back to her? Nor you, facing her?
Look at one another
Bridge the distance.
Look at one another
Bridge the distance.
Should everyone speak with everyone else, it would be unbearable.
Would it? After all.
Would it? After all.
At least, be aware of the murmur,
a film crew setting up
someone calling: Silence! Action!
divers walking up the towpath ramp in their fins,
a trumpet-player crossing the open space,
a fortune-teller in search of clients,
a mime slipping, stumbling, falling in slow motion.
Gallows raised, ropes thrown.
Endgame, your turn:
had you forgotten that you too, long ago, were here?
when you, now reading, were looking for love,
when you, before you were a Carmelite, had a rendezvous on the Pont-Neuf,
when you, before the age of mobile phones, were composing an enthralling ballad.
a film crew setting up
someone calling: Silence! Action!
divers walking up the towpath ramp in their fins,
a trumpet-player crossing the open space,
a fortune-teller in search of clients,
a mime slipping, stumbling, falling in slow motion.
Gallows raised, ropes thrown.
Endgame, your turn:
had you forgotten that you too, long ago, were here?
when you, now reading, were looking for love,
when you, before you were a Carmelite, had a rendezvous on the Pont-Neuf,
when you, before the age of mobile phones, were composing an enthralling ballad.
Time has passed.
Do you remember now?
Is it all so blurred? Now of course you are far from it all, preoccupied with other thoughts.
Is it all so blurred? Now of course you are far from it all, preoccupied with other thoughts.
Then the riverbanks were deserted:
the nun with her Reebok bag, her veil on her head, made her way up the ramp,
the man with his back turned to her flung his phone into the Seine and walked away singing,
the man facing her closed his book of yore and dived.
the nun with her Reebok bag, her veil on her head, made her way up the ramp,
the man with his back turned to her flung his phone into the Seine and walked away singing,
the man facing her closed his book of yore and dived.
The Seine, imperturbable, flows on
