She slid the book across
the counter like it was not a thing.
Her name tag, a pathetic plaque
to the sculpture of herself,
read: Mimi, the only word her parents
could find to describe her disarming countenance.

I boarded flight 146 to France
with all the confidence that the Rough Guide
to Italy inspired. The auspices were not good.
Poured sleepless into the streets
of Paris which are an ocean of women with their hair
swept into provocative hurricanes, secured by scarves,
I am no longer sure that simple people exist.

And when I finally sit
in the café Les Deux Magots, the cold
wind of conversation rolling across my back,
I am numbed into thinking that they all look alike,
and I'll be screaming Mimi for the rest of my life.