​Alouette, Au Lapin Agile, by Carole Mertz

By Shadowgate from Novara, ITALY (Montmartre) [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

​Alouette, Au Lapin Agile
 
You like visiting the famed cabaret.
visited, as well, by Utrillo,
 
Picasso, and others famed in former
days, their paintings hanging there,
 
brushed by Yesterday’s collected 
dust and smell of cooking grease. 
 
What trusting tones from muted talk,
what pretty French chansons! What
 
press of crowds and squeezing onto
benches hard! And seemingly
 
Picasso revisits, and Hemingway’s 
seated there—and from songs 
 
at the center you recall events 
told in childhood fables. And you
 
muse on that thief who made off
with many of your best memories.

Carole Mertz

Carole Mertz has poetry and critiques at various literary journals, including Ascent Aspirations, Arc Poetry (online), Conium Review, CutBank, Eclectica, Indiana Voice Journal, Mom Egg Review, Prairie Light Review, Society of Classical Poets, South 85 Journal, World Literature Today, and The Write Place at the Write Time. She enjoys spending as much time out of doors as possible, riding bike, and reading in Italian.