today at the Louvre I took students to see Venus de Milo with her pert exquisite breasts & read them Emma Lazarus’ poem to grief-struck Heinrich Heine we talked ekphrastic this & that but it was a marriage of convenience for me Emma Heinrich & Venus

later I dragged my sons to L’Orangerie to see how Monet at Giverny painted his way through World War I I imagined my father’s father (circa 1934) feather in hat & my father’s mother small & prim almost hear them whispering in Yiddish my grandmother understanding the paintings my grandfather trying to

Up close they make no sense my son said pointing to the paintings

my grandparents died half my lifetime ago & the missing—

knife? corset? sting?

what metaphor suffices?

I would make myself into a lapis lazuli that could be pressed into the trees water lily pads sky but désoléé cannot

now at le Jardin a child sobs his way around the carousel & another cries because he is too young to ride my youngest son shouts nonsense in a French accent at children who pay him no attention the mothers in their jolis hats laugh & touch each other on the elbows while the operator in the smoke-filled booth cares only that the tickets are in order I watch the ride go on & on knowing it will stop