From the Empirical Archives: In Paris by Catherine Edmunds

In Paris 

Catherine Edmunds

PHOTO: Dmitry B

Originally Published in the August 2012 Issue of Empirical

I think you have many such pyramids in Paris,

she said, and I couldn’t deny it, though this one—this

was something new

she walked away and into a kiosk

I followed, but all I could see was an elderly woman

dressed in blue stripes

far too short to see across the counter

her eyes on a level with Marie-Claire

but that wouldn’t satisfy her ugly demands in her stockings

criss-crossed with veins and treachery

I left

rested my eyes on pale plants

and between them, a movement—

a cat swept by, mimicking shadows

then gone, and all I had left was a memory

of pyramids, splashed with graffiti

PHOTO: Archibald Ballantine

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