San Pham, Crane Daughter 1
le petit detail
I think it is raining in Paris
and a man is closing a big black umbrella
as he ducks into a cafe—
of course they don’t use the word “duck”
over there, one may be on the menu
but not our verb which we use
more frequently the harder it rains.
The waitress has a limp.
Once Larry and I were walking around a lake
when a rainstorm broke—
we ducked into an open-sided shed
and stood there dripping for half an hour,
happy as clams, neither asking the other
What is an arrondissement? And now, now
is the time to tell you no one dies
thinking of other things.
My glasses fogged. There, in
the midst of visible creation.
Mary Ruefle’s latest book is Dunce (Wave Books, 2019). She lives in Vermont.