Notre Dame

Taylor 11 Linda Taylor Notre Dame In the Metro, plaques honor the French resistance: men in hats who died forty years ago this week. In the park, an old woman feeds the fish, shoos you away. On Pont Neuf, Algerian children steal your wallet, pretending to beg. On the Left Bank, you are called to view photos of the burned, scarred feet of prisoners in Iran. Across the bridge is the corner where the guidebook says someone was burned in 1380, and where, this evening, you are killing mosquitoes who need your blood to lay their eggs. You crunch across its gravel court to enter Notre Dame. Inside, the candles gleam on urns of gladiolas, big as bathtubs, big as burning oil drums in a freight yard. Still with the dust of martyrs on your feet, you feel the bite of these old disasters, wonder if you ground the wrong thought into that unholy gravel, will you see your child's face above it, his feet burning? You look again at the dim and glowing flowers, weeping, lift the water, silver, through your fingers, let it drip in skeins to your face. You ask, "Mary—Mother—forgive me: A cathedral is such a dark place." ...