by TS Hidalgo

Artwork, “Rana Plaza” by Kimberly English

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Early in the morning,

I go for a walk

through the Père-Lachaise cemetery:

in search of lost time

I ran into Gertrude Stein

(and on the other side Alice Toklas

it’s Alice Toklas

it’s Alice Toklas),

and into Delacroix guiding the people;

pictures in front of

Oscar Wilde’s tomb

(winged deity

on its front,

work by the sculptor Jacob Epstein,

off of which some collector

cut the penis),

in front of Jim Morrison’s,

by far the most visited,

in front of Molière’s and La Fontaine’s,

adjacent to one another,

in front of the enduring

beauty

of the pantheon

in which

Eloisa and Abelard rest,

medieval lovers,

in front of Piaf,

Duncan,

Callas,

in front of Balzac.

And while hundreds of Japanese

record all of this,

the world

keeps turning

likenothingwasgoingon.