"Doin' the Louvre"

"Doin' the Louvre"

Paris, December 1991
For Patricia Zamora

You're a junkie just like I am.

After we dump your husband in the Louvre's cafe
to sip the steaming tea and chew on his poetry,
we're off like schoolgirls, screeching in duet,
dazzled by the bright eternal gasp of ancient things.

We've got no business here, homegirl and compañera,
we've got no business working our mouths around
this sharp, exquisite language, or savoring the sweet
tongue-squeeze of pastries, glossy cakes and shaved chocolate.

We're of simpler stock--city and country dust,
collard greens, hopscotch, moonpies, bullet holes
and basement slow dances. We are shamelessly American,
rough street girls with rusty knees, the flip side of cocky
Parisian wisps in slim cashmere coats the color of tobacco.

Girlfriend, you and I are *too* much scream for this place,
but you're a junkie just like I am.

-- Excerpt from "Doin' the Louvre" by Patricia Smith

#TodaysPoem #Poetry #PatriciaSmith

I LOVE THIS POEM SO MUCH. I wish I could find the full poem to share here but I don't see it online, and it's pretty long.

SO SO GOOD.

It is funny and effusive and feels like the joy of both discovery and rebellion at the same time.

I love that, like a lot of Smith's poems (from what I've read from her so far), you can really HEAR the poem as you read it, and that supports just how visual/sensual the poem is at the same time. You can see taste feel so much of this poem.

Ugh, I want to share this with everyone I know. Can I do that instead of work today?