For Jean Follain
Some evenings a poet will turn
Down a ride and decide to walk home
After the banquet where he was honored
By members of a boat club
Still feeling the roughness of their hands
In his soft hand as he walks
In his coat the medallion they gave him
Already forgivably forgotten
It will be that hour when women change
For dinner before bathroom mirrors
Pins pressed between their lips
Listening over their shoulders
To what their husbands
Aren't saying from the bedroom
Where they stand wiping their glasses
On their untucked white dress shirts
They don't yet know that
They'll never make it to dinner
Because they're fated to
Hit a poet on the way
Though even as his body lies
Bleeding in the street
He will go on walking
Invisibly along the Seine
While in the restaurant where
They had reservations
The silverware is entering the dark
Of others' mouths