EXILED IN PARIS

The scattered waters
off coastal leaves
shiver on its river black ice
surrounded and notched
by windy murdered trees
as the smoke of a rising fog
rises under a deep lantern light
a December's Thursday dawn
moving a morning breeze
along a rocky Seine
as here in 1968
on a  park bench
playing my riffs
on a pawned alto sax
watching the underbrush
after a storm
removes many branches
as the daily dog watcher
named Jacques Pierre
by the river bed
with horned-rimmed glasses
is reading a French poem
from a Proust admirer
at noon delivering
a problematic love letter
far from the "red"suburbs
telling her
about his student film review
of Renoir's
"Diary of a Chambermaid"
bartering for warmth
as two cats unnerve him
near my latest paper memoir.