Looking at Paris and the Moon in 1922
(With Phrases from Mina Loy's Lunar Guide)


nervy hands

delirium of night-hours

Place de la Concorde
(Egyptian Obelisk)

July

I met Germaine at the Quatz Arts Ball, a hindu costume party at Lunar Park, for art students and models. We were both models. I had come with Freddy, who had served as a doughboy at Nîmes and was now studying painting in Paris. We were casual lovers. But it was Germaine who entranced me as red wine flowed, and her nervy hands played over my leg. Freddy insisted we leave. I insisted Germaine come too. We drunkenly made our way to the Place de la Concorde where Germaine and I draped ourselves against the base of the Egyptian Obelisk, and Freddy quickly sketched us. I felt I was tasting for the first time the delirium of night-hours. Exasperated, Freddy walked us home, where Germaine and I collapsed in each other's arms.
erudite fangs

waving a yellow farewell

Place de la Carrousel
(The Louvre)

August

I joined Germaine for Chartreuse apéritifs at the Café de Flore. She was wearing an eel-colored suit and smoking a Camel with its delicious odor of browning sugar. From there, we walked to the Louvre. Germaine, smiling as though she had a secret, dragged me to an Ingres, "La Petite Baigneuse," a scene of nude women bathing and being pampered. When we reached my apartment, Germaine washed me and fixed my hair. She outlined my cat-shaped eyes with black. Leaning toward me, pleased with her work, she demanded, "Sink your erudite fangs into me." I pushed her away. "We're not drunk now," I said. "Let's just be sensual." She slapped me and left. I opened the shutter, "Germaine!" I shouted. She didn't see me waving a yellow farewell to the moon.
shut-flower's nightmares

airy eyes of angels

Champs de Mars
(Eiffel Tower)

September

Freddy had a heart big as a washtub, but I was closed to him. Each night I dreamed my shut-flower's nightmares. I began to think again of becoming a laundress, to stop letting painters maul or seduce me after a long sitting. Daily, I posed under the airy eyes of angels and nightly was devoured by devils. Posing for Henri today, I could see through the studio window the Tour Eiffel, that iron phallus, reminding me that Henri would soon clean his brushes and offer me ripe Camembert. I was always hungry, always thirsty. Luckily, Jean dropped by and suggested we drive to the diving contest at Malturnée on the Marne.
guttural gargoyles

breakfasting on rain

Place du Parvis
(Notre Dame)

October

In the Cathedral de Notre Dame, I prayed that my sexuality would return. A thunderstorm began as I stepped onto the mall. I stared back at the guttural gargoyles vomiting rain. Germaine almost knocked me down as she pushed by me in her eel-colored suit. "Vite, vite! Come," she said. Arm in arm we entered the church and knelt. She kept stealing glimpses of me. "How are you, chéri?" she asked. I kissed her without thinking and began to laugh and cry. We ran outside, breakfasting on rain. As we walked to Germaine's, I saw the leaves falling, leaving branches bare against the wind. Inside, her room was warm. We burned many boulets, those egg-shaped lumps of coal dust.
lunar lusts

museums of the moon

Place de l'Etoile
(Arc de Triomphe)

November

I have lived with Germaine for a month. Every night, our lunar lusts reassert themselves. We gaze at the museums of the moon through a telescope on our balcony. I paint pictures of what I see and nail them to the wall. Jean accidentally saw them one day. "You are one of us," he said in amazement. "Oui," I said, biting my top lip. He has taken some of my work to show Pablo. Above the bed in our room, I have placed the picture of a woman javelin thrower. "You have a crush on her," Germaine chides me. "No," I say, "she is there to protect us." Tonight as we strolled through the Place de l'Etoile, we spontaneously began to march, as do all victorious armies at that sight. As we came through the Arc de Triomphe, the moon exited the clouds.
This work by Christy Sheffield Sanford appeared in Quarterly West and The Kiss.