Paris Massacre Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

or How Close I Came to Being There

It so happens I befriended a woman
for many circumstantial reasons.
For one, of all the random chances

in the world, she became the girl-friend
of my close male friend of some 40 years
in California.

They visited us here on numerous
occasions where we discovered
we both were from Casablanca and spent

much of our lives literally blocks apart
separated by 15 years of anniversaries.
We spoke French as fluently as native-born

except that her ancestry predated mine
in that country by centuries.
During a decade and a half long friendship

we communicate and visit respectively
in California and France.
Her daughter marries a Parisian who works

at the Brasserie Republique when suddenly
ratata-tat tat-tat the bay windows crash
in torrential sheets.