The City of Paris has You in Mind Tonight

• When G died began the midnight panic attacks. He spoke French and English but that didn't help. How the body can betray. It frayed and decayed and then he was removed from it promptly and with force. To begin with, a bit of pressure in the throat. A tendency to choke. And then how lavishly it grew to overtake him. • At the funeral his wife had a gaudy kind of beauty. Sheer and elegant in a champagne silk blouse. And where did he go? No matter where on this earth and you could never find him. Flowery and young came the mourners, like bridesmaids. G would have liked it that way. Stilettos and stockings. The curves of the widow sleek and sublimate in blacksilk pants. Elsewhere people went shopping or to the movies. We drove to the crematorium. I can only hope so many beautiful women come to my funeral, M said. • Just at the moment when the person has disappeared forever they tell you he's alive forever lucky him. The church hushed dark a ruin and all of us inside it. (The city's a brute the sky is a brute though the day is calm and clear and mild strain to comfort console but there's no dispersing this. O incidental fragile beloved one, chance of recovery none.) • The city of Paris has you in mind tonight— Let its bridges lift you up. Let the city of Paris write you a letter, the men of Paris open their windows, tending their gardens of giant snapdragons. Let the city perceive you. It is infinite and slow, it will have you back. The beds of Paris are made for you, the city of Paris is sending you steak and water, wine and eggs, it has cafés for you, a broad-flowing river and many crossbreezes. When vaulting under, when the body has shown you its foul airless destination, let the Saint-Sulpice declare living and visible your clever spirit your kindness. The tables of Paris will give you food here are some macarons pink-sweet with jam. (Rude-blooming the flowers of Paris as if snout to blossom could uncover could reinvoke.) • How is it to have a body today and walk in this city in the sun, a bit shocked to find ourselves actually here with books and teacups and ghosts and time ample, a slow greedy feast. If there's no one to walk with all over this city you can go to the movies can hurry stop buy a bunch of lavender, a book, pastry be someone distinct true personal and new. The mind rivers out, angle by angle. He was sick and now nowhere and soon the cities and soon the planet and yet the decadence and festivals boys running, couples swooning on the bridge. Tonight G's attached to a city, where I carry him along in my head, ordering dinner, sitting in the square drawing the sheet up over the body that happens now to be lying there. • How emptily the time goes, how rosé. The waiter, he had a frank stare. He wanted to be admired and I admired him. In the café everyone was alive. Everyone was eating, the garden full and flowering wet and pleasure-dome the earth the days go on and G not and G just and how can a person and now one less and she crumpled thing now as if each were an original grief now gather here and look. (Everyone this summer is obsessed with Michael Jackson. A cold place in the center feel it. In central Paristhe French are saying "moon walk.") • I drank the tiny coffee but it didn't work tried the pills that are supposed to make you happy the pills that are supposed to make you free. The man on the corner is a flasher his skin bright blue. In front of the Métro grandpa is dancing. When he looked up there were so many cracks in the sky. • Walked until the caffeine wore off. Until the buzzing stopped. Walked. Food everywhere and everywhere people putting it into their mouths. Butter and cream, fruit and sugar, coffee and wine. People on the island swirling gelato. The private inner sweetness. When the rain comes down you can feel less lonely. You can feel cozy even shut alone into your private room. When the sun comes out it's a disappointment. Who on earth can live up to it. The days go on despair and elation in alternation. Blazoned swinging moods so big they bewilder. And what is the arc of life. And up ahead nothing. On the other side what. • The city says just live with the mystery don't fight it. This is your life, life using you. The great diminishment coming— You're not the only one who feels it. It's not like you're any more mortal now you were always mortal. So try a moment of lightness like when the red bird appeared on the terrace and it wasn't mystical wasn't anyone returning just was • The old man in the wheelchair smelling of garlic the little dog in the grocery cart the homeless dog and his homeless owner the dog's sad-looking face he stays all day in the grocery cart the sympathy one feels for a dog helpless in his dog life the sympathy one feels for a man helpless in his man life for the grey cat leashed to the fire hydrant the sympathy one feels for a woman alone at the dinner table. In the hot courtyards Paris lowered its awnings. It's hard to walk in a skirt in this weather the wind catches you. A gradual slowing and she turned transparent just a window, just a sensation of walking, a blister.