One Year Later: The Geographical Cure

With volumes of Proust
and a French-English dictionary,
I climb five flights
of winding colimaçon stairs
to my new-old Paris rental:
yet even at the edge
of the tent of the sky,
my baby brother
is still
dead.

Through the attic skylight
I raise myself onto the roof
from the waist up
like a jack-in-the box,
catching scraps of rock music,
roar of the Metro,
vintage apartment buildings,
shimmering Seine,
Eiffel Tower like a
cake ornament.

Deisel fuel in the air
as I explore Père Lâchais Cemetary
in the rain, study Proust's
shiny gravestone
under dripping umbrella,
detour to
Jim Morrison's
under eggplant
sky.

Memories as shield against memory.

Proust is starting to make sense,
families untangle,
even
Parisians
seem kinder.

Reading, reading, reading.

My brother is still--