Paris
after Johannes Bobrowksi’s “Fishing port”
At evening, before snowflakes fall
one after the other,
then I love you.
I love you in the uncomfortable bed,
on the second floor of the converted horse barn
with the white light of morning
with a shadeless window,
with the sheet’s iron warmth.
Our mouths are tricked with licorice—
you come, unconcerned with Henri’s key.
The Eiffel has stopped glittering
and the man who raged at his wife
has left the metro long ago.
Here you come with your sweet mouth.
Now you walk across the last snow.
Lois P. Jones’ poetry and photographs have published in American Poetry Journal, Raven Chronicles, Tiferet and other journals in the U.S. and abroad. She is co-founder of Word Walker Press and host of Los Angeles’s Poet’s Cafe on KPFK 90.7 fm. She co-produces Moonday East and Moonday West’s monthly readings in La Canada and Pacific Palisades, California and is the Poetry Editor of Kyoto Journal, a 2009/10 Pushcart nominee, and 2010/11 nominee for Best New Poets.
qarrtsiluni 
What can I say? I am in love, and in winter~
Thank you Katherine. Paris and winter are two lovers on the same train.
Very evocative, Lois.
Thank you for listening Irene. Three days in Paris was enough for a lifetime.
Just
Just
Beautiful– the tone, the timing, the playing of each image off the next.
Truly lovely. I will remember it whenever I think of Paris, whenever I taste licorice.
Thanks, Lois, Diana
It’s terrific.
Well done, Lois.
A wonderful poem.
Leslie
Listening is a very valuable commodity. I’m grateful you spent some time here. Thank you….
Dear Lois, I am struck by the way your images and language create a photograph in shades of white with just enough shadow to give the image some form. Masterful. – Love Carol
thank you for this beautiful jewel – Jana
Miss you Jana!
Truly beautiful. Great imagery, fond remembrances of warm feelings of heart and nostalgic happiness. Sigh.
Carol, thank you for listening… I am grateful as always for our silent conversations, Love, Lois
Jana…thank you xx
Deborah thank you….yes that was a time…
Very evocative, Lois.
I like your voice and pause…
Anna Yin
I love the line, “our mouths are tricked with licorice”! Paris is a timeless place, but you have captured time in it here- the moment before snowflakes, the dance of moments as they fall, the quiet after a glitter of lights,, the calm that follows a rage, the soon to be present “sweet mouth,” and footsteps across the snow. Because you have so deftly woven disparate moments, united by the vibration of Paris itself you have created a unity between your reader and your poem and Paris, a connection outside of time. So that I, sitting in a different city, at a different time, with an entirely different point of view am transported to a converted barn, the Eiffel tower, a metro car, a field of fallen snow, a love that waits to be consumed.
“The moment before snowflakes” what an evocative line. That sounds like a poem in the making Susan. Thank you for your keen observation and sensitive ear, for feeling my moments in Paris, your generous heart.
Simply beautiful and your reading of it.. every word crystallized and poignant. Enough food for this winter romantic! Wonderful, E.
Thanks kindly Lia for your sensitive listening. Looking very forward to Plath….
This is such a beautiful poem Lois.
“our mouths trickled with licorice”; beautiful image that reminds me of the taste left after drinking anis :-)
“now you walk across the lost snow” takes me back to walking on clouds :-) but in Paris.
Merci beaucoup et bises,
Estabanobitsch
“last” of course, sorry for the typo ;-)
Merci Esteban!