The words flock together
  and stretch on the frame

Their meaning runs over,
  still wet from the pain

The canvas is porous,
  the easel maligned

The curtains blow outward,
  faces calling in mime

The streets all a-chatter,
   it was Paris in spring

And striving to look busy,
  the most important of things

Looking back at my window,
  above the tannery so high

A shadow stares back
  —and I flee in disguise

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June, 2016)