The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Lone Yellow Flower by Erika Gill

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The Rats of Notre Dame

Squeaks and scampers
accompany the night music of the cathedral
exhausted from the weekend trample
of thousands of tourist feet

Gray bodies skitter
sleek through the night
and I try not to sigh again and contain
in my chest the outburst forming
like a storm cloud accumulates

He tells me in words accented that allure me
that there are few stray cats in Paris
but points out Jupiter (or maybe Saturn)
and shows me how to tell by the steadiness of light
if we are looking at a star or planet

I always assume they are airplanes, I say
and sip from my bottle of water, not wine
and wish we had spent each night of the past week
wandering together along the Seine



the water a glossy satin ribbon in the dark
beckons me to descend the stone steps
in the quai and surrender my body to
the embrace of an ancient city

the ache of three hours walking on cobbles
didn’t diminish my desire to stay
the petulant sadness of soon-coming departure
dug claws into my chest and pricked my eyes

I looked so hard at the Haussmann architecture
gilded softly in the mellow amber of streetlights
I thought I might crack the stone
and with each inhale I hoped my lungs would retain
the mass of non-oxygen molecules and become heavy,
immovable

He would probably point out that such a thing would be fatal
and I would agree, inclined to be maudlin and absurd
this final midnight in my own placid, unintelligible heaven

Paris loved me back, maybe he would not have
and maybe it is best that I wasn’t impulsive and foolish
and didn’t try to stay



but my pulse warmed my veins
as he kissed me solemnly on each cheek
and then was gone

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