Jardin des Plantes; the zoo
Although she was beautiful,
Although her black hair, clipped
Just at the shoulders, glistened
Like obsidian as she moved
With that same slow combination
Of muscles as a dancer stepping
Casually beyond the spotlight
Into the staged, smoky
Blue of the shadows, it was
None of this that bothered me,
That made me follow her as she
Walked with her friends—a couple
Her age—along the wide dirt path
Leading to the island, the circle
Of cages where the cats glared
And paced. She was wearing a leather
Jacket, a simple jacket, cut narrowly
At the waist and dyed a green
I’d always coveted both in
Nature and out. It was the green of
Decay, of earth, of bronze covered by
The fine silt of the city, the green
Of mulch, of vines at the point
Of the most remote depth
In one of Rousseau’s familiar jungles;
It was that jacket I was following—
Its epaulettes were torn at the shoulders;
The back was crossed by swatches
Of paler, worn horizons
Rubbed away by the backs of chairs;
Along the arms, the scars of cigarettes
And knives, barbed wire . . .
I think it was she who nailed that poster
To the wall of my small room in
The Hôtel des Grandes Écoles, an ancient photo
Of the Communards marching in a phalanx
Toward the photographer, tools
And sticks the poor
Weapons held ready in their hands.
It was a poster left up by every
Student or transient spending a night
Or week in that for-real garret,
Its one window opening out
Onto the roof, letting in both
The sunlight and winter rains, the drops
Or streams from the laundry hung to dry
At the window ledge, all of it
Running down along the poster, leaving
Streaks as ochre as the rivers crossing
The map of Europe pinned to the opposite
Wall. On the poster, faded by
Every year, those at the edge of the march
Had grown more and more ghostly, slowly
Evaporating into the sepia: half men,
Half women, half shadow. And I think
It was she in that leather jacket closing
The door to this room in May 1968 to march
With all the other students to the Renault
Factory, to plead again for some
Last unity. Those scars along the arms
Were neatly sutured in that heavy
Coarse thread that sailors use, a thread
Of the same fecund green. The woman,
Thirty-five perhaps, no more, glanced
At me; I watched
As she moved off away from her friends,
Over to the waist-high, horizontal
Steel rail at the front of the leopard’s
Cage. I moved to one side, to see both
Her face and the face
Of the leopard she’d chosen to watch;
She began to lock it into her precise,
Cool stare. The leopard sat on
A pillar of rock
Standing between the high metal walkway
At the rear of the cage, where its mate
Strolled lackadaisically, and—below
The leopard—a small pond that stretched
Almost to the cage’s front, a pool
Striped blue-&-black by the thin shadows
Of the bars. The woman stood
Very quietly, leaning forward against
The cold steel of the restraint, the rail
Pressing against the bones
Of her hips,
Her hands balled in the pockets
Of her jacket. She kept her eyes on the eyes
Of the leopard . . . ignoring the chatter of
Her friends, of the monkeys, of the macaws.
She cared just for the leopard,
The leopard tensing and arching his back
As each fork of bone pushed up
Along its spine—just
For the leopard
Working its claws along its high perch
Of stone, its liquid jade eyes
Dilating, flashing only for an instant
As the woman suddenly laughed,
And it leapt.