Souvenir Gargoyle

by Rick Mullin

The Île de la Cité divides the gray
October mist and hunkers like a barge
upon the Seine, its blocks and steeples large
and low. You see the bookstalls on the quay
rise up like open coffins on a wall
where charcoal shades and fluid shapes reside,
where rough-hewn human figures flow outside
the lines, colliding, shifting stall-to-stall.

As Quai de Montebello fades beneath
Carpathian cloud forms, ashen sellers close
their plywood lids — or prop them nearly shut.
A face is framed. You know its tongue and nose
routine, familiar with its mouth. Those teeth.
The shadows where its hollow eyes are cut.