Montparnasse in August

A door bangs and a telephone rings,

Someone laughs and someone sings

And somewhere a jazz trumpet plays.

The outside enters in other ways,

Footsteps pass five floors below,

Two wasps sail in, then a slow

Growl, a rising whine,

A squeal of brakes and tyres

Pull me to the window.

Neighbours en face stare down,

Crane from their balcony,

In the echoing, half-empty town.

An ambulance, doors thrown wide,

Attends a ground-floor flat.

Gendarmes lean against the wall,

Glance up and down the street

And smoke and chat.

Emerging from the hall,

Rolling and unpeeling rubber,

A man strolls over to the gutter.

A woman edges into sight,

Hugging one elbow, half-dressed,

She bids goodbye to an event

Which took place just before

A gendarme strict in his arrest

Knocked at her flaking door.

©Terry Hodgson2020