February Notes
Going Through Old Notebooks Part 24: Walking to the café and then back again.
29 February 2024
The hyacinths blooming in the second story window boxes of the Café de Flore.
The fugitive cent of violence [I meant violets] in the room. Was it me, or the woman next to me? The woman reapplying her red lipstick with a mirrored powder compact? My fellow Americans, cutting their croissants open like they’re gutting a fish. The red pen covering my manuscript.
Walking to the café and then back again, the puddles collecting in the gutters, the Seine swollen, a pale brownish-green, overflowing the banks and drowning the feet of the willows and the cottonwoods.
The magnolias, having broken free of their buds in the park, and the white dogwoods, like loose bows in a young girl’s hair, those unkempt blossoms like knots of white ribbon.
The way the lights in the café floated down to reflect inside the wine glasses set up on the tables for the lunch service, those floating, suspended galaxies of light in the glass.
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