Picpus

    The day I went to LaFayette's grave, the
    concierge became
    our tour guide amid an old
    ruin of tombstones including bedraggled
    de Tocqueville's crypt (and he, heir
    apparant of America, too).

    There, too, the odd City of St. Louis tribute
    Fayettevilles
    after yet another "Saint" Louis, despoiler
    of the Jews - both sitting, squat and apparant,
    in summer dust, so shingle-flat,
    mindful of Place De La Nation, more
    blood-letting blocks away (so the aristocracy
    might be healed).
    A chapel nun then reached in loud
    silence for our Lord, her black
    habit / upraised hands forming a
    brilliant crucifix against sky and altar.

    Some francs exchanged hands
    (Monsieur le keeper, after all,
    obliged us by opening
    a private cemetery, après heures),
    the graves looked so wretched -
    death stylized in military formation,
    row on row,
    every private carrying a field marshall's
    baton only this time of mortality's making,
    crestfallen, no Agile Lapin/Moulin Rouge here,
    in the joyless, little garden
    (not a bird sang),
    our old Frenchman narrating/marching
    on in The Old Guard, Grand Armée
    fashion
    a little Napoleonic
    his cemetery, his brandy
    like his suspender buttons
    lost to recent antiquity.

    Place des Vosges, Place des Vendomes.
    A dish of plaice at the palais
    and a royal hippodrome.