Standing Outside the Rodin Museum On a Tuesday Afternoon.
Under the new growth
Of the sycamore trees
Which line the busy parkway,
I was standing with a camera
Trying to remember
How you stood that day.
Until the French tourist
Asked me to photograph her
With some cheap "point & shoot"
And help her remember
This burned out town.
I got lost,
And turned away
Down the parkway
To walk two miles
And escape carbonized time
Which sits, thinking,
Washed away in acid rain.
First published in Daedalus, Spring 2001.
Mary Jones © 2003