Nothing would be less shall we call it what it is, a cliché
than April in Paris. But this poem got started with some
thing I don't think I could do but it reminded me of
Aprils and then three magazines came with Paris
on the cover. Sometimes I'm amazed at all the places
I'm not, lets say Paris since actually it's only March
but in the magazines they are at outdoor cafes which
must be quite chilly now. And I forgot the cigarette
smoke, until I see many in the photographs are holding
what I'm sure isn't a pen. I wondered how they can
always be eating, biting and licking something sweet
and still have the most gorgeous bodies. I wonder too
how my friend, once an actress, so maybe that's a
clue, could dress up in scanty, naughty, as she puts it
clothes for her husband while I am sitting here in
baggy jeans and torn sweatshirts. I'm wondering if it's
because he's lost his job and she is trying to cheer him up.
I began thinking of Paris when she described the umbrella
she decorated with drops of rain, how she just wore
a garter belt under it. I thought of tear shaped drops of
rain I made for the Junior Prom's April in Paris,
long before I felt the wind thru my hair on Pont Neuf.
It's there in the photograph which I hope is more
original than the idea of the photograph because
I plan to use it on my next book. I wish I could feel
what she must, dolled up, trying to soothe this
man and getting off on it. As for me, only
imagining you, the one with fingers on me,
holding me on the page of a book
could make me as excited
lyn lifshin