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Paris Street; Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte
“Like real weather atomized”—Ciaran Carson
Caillebotte’s pale clouds fight to hold back
the sun, rain pooling between worn cobblestones, a shimmering
veneer, flatiron buildings nosing into a five-point intersection.
When I went to Paris, neon lit a dark sky. Cobblestones now paved.
Wheezing buses blocked my view. Caillebotte’s streets have no cars.
Pedestrians space themselves, walking in all directions, holding identical
umbrellas, large and curved, the color of sealskin. The closest couple
turn their placid eyes to look at something beyond the edge
of the canvas. The man wears a top hat and bow tie. His wife
wears diamond earrings and a fur-collared coat. She holds his arm
that carries their umbrella high. Brick walls, muted ochre, could be gold
with a bit more optimism, sluiced in the mesh-like rain.
My December was chilled by drizzle, no coffee or brandy capable
of even transient warmth, and I, who cherished solitude, wished
I had someone to joke about conformity or bourgeoisie. I rode
the warm subways so often I memorized metro maps.
At Gare Saint-Lazare, a couple asked me how to get to Opera.
I understood their question, told them in French how to get there.
My sudden competence thrilled me! The husband frowned
and murmured, elle n’est pas francais. They asked a young man
the same question and he repeated my answer. Suddenly sick
of rain and trains and tiny cheese sandwiches,
that evening I left for Italy.
Sara Backer’s first book of poetry, Such Luck, follows two chapbooks: Scavenger Hunt, and Bicycle Lotus, which won the Turtle Island Chapbook Award. Recent publications include Lake Effect, Slant, CutBank Online, Poetry Northwest, Poetry Ireland, and Kenyon Review. She lives in New Hampshire and is currently writing novels.
THE CITY KEY 