And If We’d Kept Our Daughter, We’d Have Named Her Lille

 By Brent Schaeffer 

art curtesy of The University of Chicago on Unsplash

When we got off the train in Paris it was late.
Gare Du Nord looked like a Monet: black
and gray with strokes of gloss. We were lost.
Athena and I slipped into backpacker backpacks and set out
across the city. I had to piss. Like ugly Americans
we stopped at McDonald’s, my ankles killing me,
… We were broke. We took another train north,
hoping it’d be cheaper than Paris. It was.
We got a room for a week—fucked and ate kebabs
from a taco truck thing—just like L.A.—
but colder and somehow romantic. I don’t remember

much about Lille. My ankle, really
my Achilles, still bothers me today in the graveyard
holding hands with Kennan.
It’s a wet fall in Seattle, a lot like Paris.
She asks about marriage.
I want to talk about kids. At Père Lachaise,
Athena and I’d split a ham sandwich and walk
among the dead. Here it is just as quiet.
The cemetery undulates and dips to a hollow—
headstones circle round and round like rings
or mixing bowls, and at its depth:
a reflecting pool, a brass egret and many,
many small blue flowers.

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