It's Easter and we're having a bit of a family day today. I expect the talk will include whether to run off to join a circus, and when we can expect the press to stop hounding one of us. The Parisienne poetry discussions can wait although it all reminds me of that Colin Meloy song and a lovely picture from the twostorysketchbook.
My mother was a Chinese trapeze artist in pre-war Paris smuggling bombs for the underground.
And she met my father at a fete in Aix-en-Provence. He was disguised as a Russian cadet in the employ of the Axis.
And there in the half-light of the provincial midnight to a lone concertina they drank in cantinas and toasted to Edith Piaf and the fall of the Reich.
My sister was born in a hovel in Burgundy and left for the cattle but later was found by a communist who'd deserted his ranks
to follow his dream to start up a punk rock band in South Carolina.
I get letters sometimes.
They bought a plantation she weeds the tobacco, he offends the nation and they write, "Don't be a stranger, y'hear."
"Sincerely, your sister."
So my parents had me to the disgust of the prostitutes on a bed in a brothel. Surprisingly raised with tender care 'til the money got tight and they bet me away to a blind brigadier in a game of high stakes canasta.
But he made me a sailor on his brigadier ship fleet. I know every yardarm from main mast to jib sheet. But sometimes I long to be landlocked and to work in a bakery.
