Café life, the terrace seats and tiny spoons
and lovers’ faces in the sun. A trampy
man demands to buy a bottle of water;
the garçon says we don’t sell bottles;
the bum grumbles into his half-shaven jaw:
Je veux une bouteille d’eau. They are fighting
as if during the Revolution – it’s Bastille Day –
over a bottle of poured or rented or drunk water.
They are growling through their teeth
as two people might seethe over how
to say “hamburger.” After the old man sits,
(deadringer for “Boudu” fished out of the Seine)
he tries to ferret away his dear bottle. The garçon
runs to wrest the green Perrier from his grip.
Half empty, half full, it’s all the same.
Under the shade of the chestnut trees along
a boulevard in Ménimontant.