David Kirby
Dear Sandwich Grec, Pasolini, Languages, and Plain Girls Who Are Smiling
The Boulevard St.-Michel, Paris
When I’m alone, dear sandwich, you’re my friend. And when I’m
with someone else, that makes three or four of us, depending
on whether the other person’s hungry. Like my friends, you’re
always the same, always different. You can be jambon or poulet
or tuna and any of half a dozen different cheeses or no cheese
at all. With or without lettuce, tomato, onion. Always with sauce:
sauce mayonnaise, sauce tomate, sauce américaine, which is like
Russian dressing though not called sauce russe. Like a friend,
you can annoy me. Now look what you’ve done! There’s sauce
américaine on my shirt and a bit of hard-boiled egg on my shoe.
One of you is my best friend, and that’s the sandwich grec,
which is a gyro smothered in french fries. I should only eat you
sitting down, sandwich grec, but what’s a friend good for if you
can’t take a walk with him on a beautiful day like this?
Now there’s a trail of french fries behind me. Now I’ve bitten
off a piece of paper, ptooey! Along with the bread and meat
and veggies and sauce blanche, which is yogurt with secret
ingredients. I could find out what those are, but is it a good
idea to know everything? Oh, look, here’s the Accatone
theater, named after Pier Paulo Pasolini’s first movie.
This is the right city for you, maestro. I mean, it’s the right
city for everybody, but for each in a different way. It’s a city
of episodes, like your films. Which are crazy, as are all cities.
That’s not a bad thing! I just mean one minute St. Francis
is preaching to the birds, and the next, a funeral procession
for a Communist big shot goes by complete with mourners,
real ones. So many of your actors aren’t actors, yet you use
them again and again, so they are. Just like the people in
my neighborhood! When I first got here, I couldn’t tell which
ones belonged and which were passing through. Surely some
of them look at me now and think He’ll live here forever,
but I won’t. At the Accatone, they show everybody: you,
yeah, but BuΖuel, Fellini, Ken Russell, Vittorio de Sica.
There are movies here in Dutch, Arabic, Polish, German.
English is the second language of France, and now Spanish
is the second language of the U.S. Soon they’ll be speaking
the one in Dijon and the other in Borough Park: “How are you,
Mrs. Apollinaire?” “¿Muy bien, SeΖora Horowitz,
y usted?” Portuguese is like Spanish, only wetter. I can’t tell
the difference between Swedish and Dutch, though. I wonder
if the people who speak them can? I mean, I know they can,
but still. In the Luxembourg Garden, the bees dance to show
other bees where the honey is. And the ravens walk around
with their mouths open, which doesn’t look too bright.
This morning a guy was talking crazy on the metro in some
language none of us could understand. That’s bad manners, sir!
Nobody knew what you were saying. The space aliens who
follow your every move may be after us as well, so spit it out.
Now here’s a plain girl and she’s smiling to herself. I bet it’s a fellow. I
I bet he said “I love your nose!” or “Will you help me
with my math homework?” I like you better than the pretty girls.
Of course, they’re smiling—they’re pretty! And I like you best
of all when you’re by yourself. When you’re with a friend,
maybe you’re just being polite, but when you’re alone,
then it’s just you lighting yourself up like a table lamp. I bet your mother
tells you to smile more and says, “You’re so
pretty when you smile!” But you smile all the time. Here, show
her this poem. Or maybe you took revenge on a mean boy just by being
yourself. You’re always smiling, even when
you’re not. Now you’re gone, sandwich grec. You have departed
as air. If I want you again, I will look for you under my boot-soles.
Failing to fetch you at first, missing you one place,
I will search another. You will be good health to me and filter
and fibre my blood. You stop somewhere, waiting for me.
Poor Pasolini, you were run over by your own car.
Some say Mafia, others say secret police. No answer there, either.