Summer, 2018
A woman walks away from Notre-Dame along the Quai des Orfèvres,
weeping openly. I want to ask her what’s wrong.
The cathedral towers, serene above the traffic, are turning
the color of cream in the afternoon sun.
It’s not even the prettiest, as cathedrals go, nor the most unusual—
no oxen atop its spandrels, like the ones at Laon; no Ursuline bone
mosaic.
A water spout high above resembles a surgeon I dislike.
We see in these stone beings the gargoyles of our lives.
The plaza was supposed to be a car-park. Digging deep in Paris
risks encounter, risks apocalypse. Sometimes the asphalt sings.
Mass has begun. The processional cross stretches toward the vault,
visible to all. I can’t see who’s carrying it—too many people.
The priest welcomes us to liturgy in a number of vernaculars.
I hear Tagalog. My heart flies up toward the clerestory.
Through the stones beneath our feet, the would-be car-park exhales
dank secrets of medieval death and Roman conquest. The port of
Lutèce
flickers in and out of view. A single laborer’s cigarette
could bring down these thousand years. The priest is praying,
praying,
a disc of bread, a grail, in his hands. We bow our heads, close
our eyes tight. Out on the quai a woman weeps and walks away, a
speck.
