after Brassai

You’ll find me at Pont des Arts
where water remains water
till it moves between tolling bells

while your light feet carry speed,
you chase after disappearing bistros,
then find me at Pont des Arts.

In my bed on Rue de Seine,
we whisper and you touch my cheek,
charting out time with your fingers.

At my window on Rue de Seine,
I light a candle to look into your eyes
which find their way to Pont des Arts

without compass, without map,
as the bridge arches into time,
charting history across two banks.

Days connect years, years become places—
you travel over dreams or on bicycle.
Will I find you at Pont des Arts?
Moon crossing bridge in vanishing stars.

###

Fiona Sze-Lorrain writes and translates in English, French, and Chinese.  Her latest collection is The Ruined Elegance (Princeton, 2016), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry and one of Library Journal’s “Best Books 2015: Poetry.”  Her earlier two collections are My Funeral Gondola (2013) and Water the Moon (2010).  Her work has also been shortlisted for 2016 Best Translated Book Award in Poetry and longlisted for the 2014 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.  She lives in Paris where she works as a zheng harpist and an editor.  More of her work can be found here.

“Rendez-vous at Pont des Arts” was previously published in Mascara Literary Review.

Look for new work from Fiona Sze-Lorrain in TLR: Chemistry, the all-poetry issue, available now.