Paris (2006)

By Bunny Kinney

Smoking cigarettes with not-quite friends in some dead old man’s apartment, we shake the Orangina, grinning greedy, liquor teeming. In the window there’s the Tower sparkling,  soaked in midnight light; I think about my sister. Thérése starts screeching Re-gar-dez! The Ferris wheel, still lit and brilliant, circles slow, last lovers cradled near the top. The carnival is almost closed- On y va! she slurs, sprinting desperate, barefoot across Rue de Rivoli. At the garden gates we beg the man Attendez, s’il vous plait, juste une fois, seulement une fois and he let’s us on the swings. We climb their cold chain tentacles and laugh and swear and spin so fucking dizzy dying dead; I scream Oh God Oh God Oh God Oh God and fuck! I’m fuck! so happy.