Big City, Little
Paris
Margo Berdeshevskyon hearing Pergolesi
Michael Gause
In Paris
~ . ~ . ~
on hearing Pergolesi, a Friday concerto
Margo Berdeshevsky
Not yet Easter now but dark,
but dusk, how this nearness of March-soprano
strays exposure, like old light -- layered, and multiple.
This dust of the moon, breaking.
This is magnolia, in
the courtyards,
and April, climbing
the shoulder of its Stabat Mater
for a better view
of joy, after.
This is the slow-hipped
walk of winter's late fugue,
and the mimosa's promise.
This, the dust of
the Hôtel Dieu
across its island
of stone.
Still, a shoulder soft
with Saturday's
desire, sips her warmed,
day-drowning hour.
Soft, because skies,
and copper light,
lost on its own thread.
Soft, because it bends
into the Seine
like some redhead
on a silken sheet, already
rumpled for her arrival
and His death.
Soft, because He hung
by dust
and thread
and promise, and love.
And she mourned with
her high voice
©2000 Margo Berdeshevsky
and for ever, layered,
and multiple, and music, and mother.
M. Berdeshevsky is a contributing editor to
Big City Lit™. She lives in Paris and Maui.
~ . ~
In Paris
Michael Gause
for Georges Bataille
The laughter of ignorant women
makes this night more romantic
in Paris, where not knowing is
more beautiful than all the smiling virgins left,
whose drawn back bodies are almost releasing
the trickle-sound of my contentment.
As I sit encircled, I caress it from all sides at once.
(Michael Gause's work has appeared in The Venerable Seed, ArtWord Quarterly,
Rape of Narcissus, Poetry Motel, Unarmed, and Red River Review (Nov '01) and
online at minneapolisunderground.com and mentalcontagion.com. Co-founder
of "The Day on Fire," a televised reading series, he is creator and host of "The
Bean Counter Coffee Reading Series" in St. Paul, Minnesota.)