Oct 2013
It is not until my parents leave my brother and I to wander about the Musée d’Orsay
on our own tick tock desire and dollar,
where we take in the sunset and clock frame I recognize from a black and white photograph my mother took when she came
herself, and I almost trip over the rope that protects a Monet—
“Excusez-moi!” I almost scream—
that I am left to breathe in Paris at my own pace.
Perched on a stone bench high enough
that I have to awkwardly throw my body onto the slab
like I’m a sacrifice to the gods of love,
I chew on some ham pressed
between some lettuce and two halves of a baguette,
and I throw the breadcrumbs,
at first caught in my hair,
to the birds,
the ones who wander around the courtyard of the museum,
waiting for fools like me to feed them after viewing great art.
Some are gray with white tips
at the end of each feather, and others
have their heads cloaked in navy blue,
almost black,
as if they
splashed into a River Seine full of paint,
and it never washed off
their plump,
yet delightfully light
bodies.
And the paint stretches down,
surrounds their neck like a
lion’s mane that darts into the same
gray that paints the sky
in the winter Hemingway described
to me in his book.
Raccoon stripes wrap around their wingspan,
and their eye contact
is like that of a Hitchcock psychopath
who wants to ****** me for
not sharing my sandwich.
I am easily guilt-tripped by the pigeons of the world,
and Parisian flutterers
are no exception.
I rip off bits of my sandwich to throw to the grounded creatures
caught in a plight of hunger outside the museum.
They pluck at the chunks too big for their beaks,
and I slide off my perch
to meet and greet with the birds,
flustered by the sudden supply of bread crumbs
and who peck and beck towards me.
I hear laughter, but it sounds old,
and I turn to face the security guard
who shakes his head in his seat, chuckling at me.
His smile is young, but his badge is *****,
like the street outside the metro stop for Notre Dame.
His duty makes him speak French, and I mumble English in return.
“Madame, please don’t feed the birds!” he laughs, and I push
my bread back down into my bag, embarrassed as an American in France can be.
I kick my feet up to hurry the pigeons away, and they fly up around me, like
a wave of the black and white color spectrum, caught up in the next surprise.
on our own tick tock desire and dollar,
where we take in the sunset and clock frame I recognize from a black and white photograph my mother took when she came
herself, and I almost trip over the rope that protects a Monet—
“Excusez-moi!” I almost scream—
that I am left to breathe in Paris at my own pace.
Perched on a stone bench high enough
that I have to awkwardly throw my body onto the slab
like I’m a sacrifice to the gods of love,
I chew on some ham pressed
between some lettuce and two halves of a baguette,
and I throw the breadcrumbs,
at first caught in my hair,
to the birds,
the ones who wander around the courtyard of the museum,
waiting for fools like me to feed them after viewing great art.
Some are gray with white tips
at the end of each feather, and others
have their heads cloaked in navy blue,
almost black,
as if they
splashed into a River Seine full of paint,
and it never washed off
their plump,
yet delightfully light
bodies.
And the paint stretches down,
surrounds their neck like a
lion’s mane that darts into the same
gray that paints the sky
in the winter Hemingway described
to me in his book.
Raccoon stripes wrap around their wingspan,
and their eye contact
is like that of a Hitchcock psychopath
who wants to ****** me for
not sharing my sandwich.
I am easily guilt-tripped by the pigeons of the world,
and Parisian flutterers
are no exception.
I rip off bits of my sandwich to throw to the grounded creatures
caught in a plight of hunger outside the museum.
They pluck at the chunks too big for their beaks,
and I slide off my perch
to meet and greet with the birds,
flustered by the sudden supply of bread crumbs
and who peck and beck towards me.
I hear laughter, but it sounds old,
and I turn to face the security guard
who shakes his head in his seat, chuckling at me.
His smile is young, but his badge is *****,
like the street outside the metro stop for Notre Dame.
His duty makes him speak French, and I mumble English in return.
“Madame, please don’t feed the birds!” he laughs, and I push
my bread back down into my bag, embarrassed as an American in France can be.
I kick my feet up to hurry the pigeons away, and they fly up around me, like
a wave of the black and white color spectrum, caught up in the next surprise.
