(Aix-en-Provence)
Beyond the French doors leading out
to this fourth-floor rental’s balcony, open sky
above a pre-Cubist arrangement of
ochre walls, blue-gray shutters both open
and closed, and terra cotta roofs—all studded
with innumerable accessories and doodads:
small chimneys gathered in familial groups
and wearing metal caps, a Celtic cross
and two stone urns atop the church;
a gold ball below a flag-like weathervane
at the apex of a pyramidal tower,
the pointy, floppy tops of three cypresses
projecting up like elf hats; satellite dishes,
the skeletal metal wings of TV antennas,
and, best of all, the shiny cylindrical
vents whose tops, spinning like pinwheels,
flash festively with sunlight—all these
conduits and valves and instruments
that in one way or another mediate
between worlds, between a sky saturated
with sunlight and the streets below, noisy
with the cries of children on their way to school
and the clang of workers in blue jumpsuits
assembling scaffolding against the wall
opposite, keeping it all from falling apart.
from Between LakesFind more by Jeffrey Harrison at the library
Copyright © 2020 Jeffrey Harrison
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.