Paris

Here, where only doors

Open and close

All is strange.

I hear through the walls

Sirens. For we are the children

Of science. We defy death

And live on our own.

Taunting laughter

Voices voices voices

Now loud, now soft

As someone makes love in the distance

I listen.

Meanwhile, doors open and close

Forever.

Among long corridors.

I see the street below

With its zebra stripes

And its elephant skin

And machines roaring

And chirping

Dreadul parrots.

Still the doors open and close

And latches click shut.

Soon it grows dark

The sun abandons us

Careless lover

Moving to other planets

Other bodies

While they only open doors

And shut them

As I listen.

Deprived of sight

By blinding light

I only smell

Fish and meat.

In this city of cannibals

I am no Tiresias.

More doors open and shut

And echo in the silence.

The day completes its loop

And I am locked out

Like always

Like I was there,

I am here too, a stranger.

Among a strange people.

And forever the doors open

And close.

And I hear.