Paris, France – October 2016
Looking through the window
of a Paris tour bus,
I see you
you don’t see me
as we weave our way through traffic
around the Arc de Triomphe
in opposite directions,
west to east, east to west.
I filch radiance flicked
from your chin,
pull your aquiline nose,
through my vitreous humor,
snatch your arched brows,
stash the purse of your resolute lips
at the distal end of my optic nerve.
You settle quickly in my flash fade city
of deciphered light with its populace
of pilfered photons and stores of stolen images..
What have I taken from you that you will miss?
Of what am I guilty?
For converting your scattered light into my sight?
You will not notice your face
coming to rest on my retina.
You will never know
and I will soon forget.
For that reason
I write this poem.
.
.