by Carrie Magness Radna
An Aerostar arrived in Charles de Gaulle Station,
fresh with London rain. The Parisian clouds looked tame
and people strode out upon the wet streets, bravely.
I dreamed I lived in Paris for a while
before I headed home to America.
My heart felt thick as clouds, but my worries were transparent;
Even after the rain stopped, I saw trains racing, everywhere—
Lost loves were left behind.
I need to walk on, as I crossed the Seine
on the Pont de Arts to the other side of the Louvre.
I wish I had a lover there,
a piece of silver painted on the clouds ahead.
I am alone now; it is enough to be here.
Carrie Magness Radna is an audiovisual cataloger at the New York Public Library, a choral singer and a poet who loves traveling. Her poems have previously appeared in The Oracular Tree, Mediterranean Poetry, Muddy River Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway, Shot Glass Journal, Vita Brevis, Home Planet News, Cajun Mutt Press, Walt’s Corner, Polarity eMagazine, The Poetic Bond (VIII & IX), Alien Buddha Press, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rye Whiskey Review and First Literary Review-East. She won 12th place for “Lily (no. 48 of Women’s names sensual series)” by the 2018 Writer’s Digest Poetry Awards. Her first chapbook, Conversations with dead composers at Carnegie Hall (Flutter Press: 1st edition; now out-of-print) was published in January 2019. Her first poetry collection, Hurricanes never apologize (Luchador Press) was published in December 2019. Born in Norman, Oklahoma, she now lives with her husband in Manhattan. https://carriemagnessradna.com