Our One Parisian Romance

1 Minute Read Time

The outside of Cafe Palais Royale in Paris, France. It sits on the corner of two streets, with outdoor seating covered by red canopies and illuminated with lights. The restaurant is the first floor of a larger, white building with lots of windows and a gray roof.

The performance over and the crowd’s dispersal into the dark, rain sheened, winter streets. We among them in the amber glow of streetlights, our silhouettes across the cobblestones, elongated and elegant. The restaurant we chose at a late hour, the server’s affectionate confidence, leading us with her hand, her Madame et monsieur, pleased to have a table. The carnelian ceiling, the slender vertical mirrors along all the walls, the gilded crystal sconces. The slow, luxurious linger of your hand on my face, our dinner’s seductive pace, the long kisses between the courses. Do you remember the mirrors affirmed us infinitely in the room? That relinquishment of caution, wariness: had we ever let it go in America? The side stare, the squint in malice, the black and white sting of language, where we learned to stand or walk conservatively apart. Our bodies we guarded then by divorcing them.

Chanda Feldman

is the author of Approaching the Fields (LSU Press, 2018). Her recent poems appear in AGNI, Copper Nickel, Poetry, and Southern Review. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Oberlin College.

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