"Breakfast in Paris with Nasturtiums."
Somewhere a jazzy fountain plays against the babble
of the street, women meet on the way to vegetable stalls,
and salad vendors, humped under their braided baskets,
wheedle the sun enchanted ear
with their monotonous calls.
And sweetly, appropriately dressed,
a middle-aged lady takes her seat
at a round table in the shade, and looks
at a bowl of nasturtiums.
The sidewalk is neat.
The table is laid with a clean cloth and floats upward
in spice scent, whirls with yellow
and red on stiff green stalks, almost tilting backward
into a flowering hedge.
A gendarme, sleeping babies, and an exploding Lambretta
frame this delightful scene.
The lady is complacent.
Soon, she will be met by her more-than-middle-aged love,
who often presses her puffy fingers and fondles her name,
Henrietta, because he can do no more.
She prepares herself by removing her fresh white glove.
What is rare swings in the balance of timelessness,
like a shadowed door that opens upon the sun drenched street.
Therefore, the scent of nasturtiums, and the fumes
of the Lambretta, the gendarme's whistle,
and the sleeping babies all wait with Henrietta.