This late in the game, in our jade consciousness,
there is still innocence.
It peels the leather back,
it floods with exuberance the most open spaces
watches the way an old port glimmers
as do beaches, boardwalks, plazas
kids still thrill over the spinning of cotton candy,
(Marseille trades sailors’ pleasures for barbe à papa?)
amazed at the magic of things — so outrageously
simple –
and at night they walk back and forth along the water
talking, talking, among the oldest of pleasures
as if they have to, they have to walk, it calms the planet’s nerves
frayed as the old ship rope that is on its last skin