Paris on crutches (minus one) 

There I was, resting suavely, after surgery in a cafe in Paris 

having gotten my hip replaced up in Belgium, and a tooth  

popped out of my mouth and dropped into my croissant. Hilarious! 

So naturally I laughed at that, slipped on my black leather jacket, 

walked out of the cafe over to the Seine and threw the tooth in, incisively

with some kind of upbeat prayer and a goodbye to my tooth,

all of this to keep any silly sadness (about falling apart, ha!) off of me. 

It had been a bumpy bunch of decades so now I was feeling festive. 

This surgery (replete with a sparkling smorgasbord of morphine!) 

sewed up a year to the day of my reservation at the rehab with a view,

sobering up after drinking every day from junior high school onwards. 

Back at the hotel, my tooth already having a made a splash in Paris, 

something was pulling at my drinking sleeve to go to the American Cathedral

across the river and a few doors down from the Champs-Élysées, then down

the ancient steps to the crypt to the secret meeting to talk it over. In French!

That meant crossing Paris on crutches—streets, trains, the subway

under the Seine, up and down the stairs—could I do it? Oui, oui, oui! 

Get up out of bed, down the hotel stairs on my wooden crutches, flashing 

down the street, across the city on the Métro, considered going way down 

those stairs into the Catacombs but I’d be out of my skull to try that, so 

I kept on across Paris and under the river, through the Arc de Triomphe!

Those deliciously fun French making way for me on the sidewalk, 

offering their seats on the subway, smiling and saluting me 

like I’m Jean Gabin, and what a wonderful day, 

such a long, long way

from junior high, my body still alive!