Call from Paris
Whistling down the wires
that string together the world,
your voice: It never stops
raining here, you say. Paris
is an ocean of chatter and smoke,
a sea of umbrellas. You tell me
the phone booth is a glass-bottom
boat, the Seine keeps flooding
her banks, and last night
at dinner you couldn’t think
of a thing to say. You tell me
you are part of something
old now. You cannot believe
the way the sky opened
inside the cathedral, the way
the chants lifted you up
like a waterwheel, broke you
into a thousand shining pieces
and sent you raining
back to the world.