I sat on a park bench
between the Seine and the monument at Bastille.
Balloons from a street fair raced
to the pepper-gray sky, winter about to do its painting.
Traffic hummed around the circle from all directions,
a soufflé of motorbikes in the distance, approaching.
A woman in a yellow coat waved
to a man who was close enough to me to give me hope.
I sat as the leaves and some newspaper pages
slid and skipped over my shoes, as the lights of the Opera
slowly came on, and when I stood up I saw my reflection
in the leaves of a huge, scarred tree.
I had become a giant, one who couldn’t help wondering
why he so ungraciously ever thought it was otherwise.