notes from the paris journal 
I.  I think in space
I think in space,
an emptiness.  then let time 
fill it in.  new days 
feel like deja vu.
the past, a thing alive /
crawling in the woodgrain, 
buggy in the carpets.  
scratching to be free 
from the grooves
of fusun's jazz records. \ 
your parents' house 
like a museum, I am afraid
to touch anything.  not afraid
of breaking something old, but 
of becoming.  how many lives
have been strained by these
walls    through oldworld stone
and peat chink   some residue 
left in the cracks,
in the curtains,  faint scent 
of a perfume never felt,
no longer made.    
dried flowers on the walls
gone extinct.
*
today we saw the flea market
at clingencourt.  a real parisian
antique shop, the haggling kind.
old people poring over
silver teaspoons, china dolls.  
there were paintings torn
from someone's sketchbook,
grave-robbed pictures,
yellowed postcards.
I want to tell someone:
some lives end up this way.
some lives go up for sale.     
but my language fades
and no new one rushes in.
tonight
I can't even touch you