This sensual city, either about to make love
Or, having made love, walking the cobblestones
On the Left Bank toward La Notre Dame.

The way the tracery of her stocking tops
Out-Gothics the spire of St. Germain des Pres.
Or the deep symmetrical half-moons worn

In limestone walls by moor rings pushed one way
And the other by teenagers who smoke grass
On the quay stones & pull their pants down—

Even the girls!—at the tourist boats that erase
This strange light with their floodlight.
Semi-pornographic lithographs for sale here,

By Lautrec, Miró, & Delaunay. They too confuse
The bellowing underskirts of cabaret dancers
With the masonry of d'Orsay; the small breasts

Of a young lover with the moon stretching above
The plane trees of Le Jardin de Tuileries;
St-Severin with a womb; Paris with a woman.