Picpus

The day I went to LaFayette's grave, the         concierge became         our tour guide amid an old         ruin of tombstones including bedraggled         de Tocqueville's crypt (and he, heir         apparant of America, too).         There, too, the odd City of St. Louis tribute         Fayettevilles         after yet another "Saint" Louis, despoiler         of the Jews - both sitting, squat and apparant,         in summer dust, so shingle-flat,         mindful of Place De La Nation, more         blood-letting blocks away (so the aristocracy         might be healed).         A chapel nun then reached in loud         silence for our Lord, her black         habit / upraised hands forming a         brilliant crucifix against sky and altar.         Some francs exchanged hands         (Monsieur le keeper, after all,         obliged us by opening         a private cemetery, aprs heures),         the graves looked so wretched -         death stylized in military formation,         row on row,         every private carrying a field marshall's         baton only this time of mortality's making,         crestfallen, no Agile Lapin/Moulin Rouge here,         in the joyless, little garden         (not a bird sang),         our old Frenchman narrating/marching         on in The Old Guard, Grand Arme         fashion         a little Napoleonic         his cemetery, his brandy         like his suspender buttons         lost to recent antiquity.         Place des Vosges, Place des Vendomes.         A dish of plaice at the palais         and a royal hippodrome.