Wilde's Tomb                                    
          But these, thy lovers, are not dead,              
          . . . . They will rise up & hear your voice,
          and run to kiss your mouth.
                                    “The Sphinx” — Oscar Wilde                                                                                       

In the garden of Père Lachaise,
city of the dead, we passed angels
covering their faces in shame,
& nineteenth-century trees, with tops bowed
as if their only purpose was to grieve,
& crossed the Transversales to Wilde’s grave.

When lovers leave, they leave their kisses
glistening on the slab, 
on impressions of lips themselves,
a tissue of strangers’ cells
the conservators cannot leave alone,
& scrub the graffiti, as the plaque decrees 
by law, no one can deface this tomb,
& still the images of lips remain, 
dark gray stains of animal fat
imprisoned in limestone.

Lips are pressed as high as lovers
climb, against the Sphinx’s ridiculous 
headdress, on the carved trumpet
of fame, & on the cheeks of its voracious face
of mindless passion flying with eyes pinched tight,
that some farsighted lover tried to open 
with lines from a red pen, like a blepharoplasty,
while others kissed its sybaritic mouth
to make a poem a prophecy.

So here is love alive
surviving the wreckage it survives,
a lipstick envelope of hearts on their flight
to some other place, less aware,
more receiving, a final Champ de Grâce. 





The Return


With a tour group closing in, we left Wilde’s sphinx 
where sentiment always is, & followed the Avenue Circulaire 
to the wall of the Communards, then to a bench across from a cenotaph, 
broke a baguette & stared as mourners stare.

Behind the bench, a grassy hill, & behind it, a boulevard 
we could not see, but over the tiers of trees, 
a French girls’ choir gave its rehearsal from some high-rise;
angled notes folding & unfolding purely on decisions of air,

& went on like this for an hour or more, & the repertoire complete, 
the girls with ribbons in their hair, as if performing for
Experience for its own sake, bounced down stairs
to waiting cars, cafés & girly affairs.

Evening came.  What was left but the long walk back,
a decanter of wine, house red, in one of those cafés on rue Cler.