w

wDiscreetly white graffiti ww12 November 2010

A little corner of bicycles and scooters and gracious cream houses
of bookshops and plane trees
decorative cast-iron filigree and lamp standards

Notre Dame defers tactfully on the other side of the river
lightly decked out in autumn sunshine

signs blue and green enamelled
rue de la Bûcherie and rue Frédéric Santon picked out in white

men in berets and jeans and leather jackets
forty-something women in sombre colour

barred old windows with white shutters edged in subtle urban grime
ivy and creepers trailing from galvanised buckets

coffee in black cups beneath a red and white awning
the black café chairs weaved and weaving

street noise discreetly passes us by before the white graffiti
and boarded up stalls of the bouquinistes

men in overcoats dodging under
the street signs. In the fifth arrondissement