There is a Panther on the Streets of Paris
slinging hammocks of intent between each step,
hunting unbroken hearts beyond the senses.
No one knows.
Rumours breeze like leaves along Boulevard Saint Germain.
Another takes a table at Le Café Des Arts
indistinct in clouds of Vogue Bleu.
No one. Not even the off-duty gendarme
whose breath caught in the branches of his lungs
when he glimpsed its paws’ dry prints
on Rue De Verneuil after rain.
A physician at Hôtel-Dieu
treated a man who claimed the creature styled
his hair with an upward rough-tongued lick;
a couple on Pont De Carrousel who swore
they were undone declaiming love,
as if their hearts were removed to make one.
An ophthalmologist looked behind fiery eyes
the day Notre-Dame succumbed
to its blood against the sky,
and the dense fur of melanistic night.