Yellow vests wave in the streets.
And you, a tiny cardboard cut-out
squeezed into an Airbnb you rented
based on a photo taken with a wide-angle
lens, the whole room as big as your couch
when it pulls to a bed. Torn and stacked
boxes crowd every inch of the corner,
your paper doll edges frayed. Hearts are
breaking in the street, on the news, down
the hall. The phone too heavy to dial out,
restaurant too far to walk, too hard to find.
Silence throbs behind musty rouge curtains
flooded with streetlight glowing through
drapes that lock in your darkness.
So loud, the non-noise noise, the quiet,
it collects like piles of sawdust. You can see
it by candlelight from the bed as you drink
Mouton Cadet, 2016. Everybody knows
the boat is leaking, Leonard Cohen croons
on the radio, saltwater on your cleft
in the low light, the walls of Paris around you.
