Summer, Paris
For days, now the fan
has spun its lonely circles
around the same spot on the ceiling,
the only thing, it seems, that moves.
Heat so thick
that even your shadow weighs heavily
on your shoulders
even the pigeons do no more than coo faintly
among the eaves
even the buildings drip their sweat
onto the pavements.
Even time drifts slowly
in this heat, and the church bells
that just clamoured so hauntingly for the faithful
are the same ones that you heard
almost a century ago.
If only a breeze would come
and tear the heat
to tatters
Elodie Rose Barnes is a queer author, poet and artist with a serious case of wanderlust. Her love of travel and seeing new places has inspired a fascination with the ideas of time and space, and this seeps into most of her writing.
Her work has been accepted in Rose Quartz Magazine, Down in the Dirt Magazine, Crêpe & Penn, and The Purple Breakfast Review (Wordsmith HQ). Current projects include a chapbook of poetry inspired by family history, time, and "lost things", and a novel based on the life of modernist writer and illustrator Djuna Barnes. You can find her on Twitter @BarnesElodie.
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