For Max Elbo

It will be June and we will be sitting
in the Parc Monceau, the one with the pond
and the columns and we will be at a table,
one of the small ones, and we’ll have just struggled
to buy a baguette from Madame on Rue de Mosselle
who hates Americans and also other tourists.
It will be like that other summer, when
we stayed in the 19th Arrondissement and
you will be stepping toward us along the path,
dodging les gens, smiling, and we will forget
for just a moment that you’ve gone
somewhere we can’t follow, left us shadows,
the breeze under the plane trees by the canal.