I entered timidly: there was an ostrich that was losing its feathers, and, on a pedestal of white stucco, a bronze bird whose plumage was represented by a series of engraved shells. Mr. Abel Hermant or someone like Mr. Abel Hermant appeared as soon as the vestibule was opened.

Once there was a locomotive so good that it stopped to let pedestrians pass. One day an automobile bumped over its tracks. The engineer whispered into the ear of his steed: “Shouldn’t we take it to law?” “It is young,” said the locomotive, “it doesn’t know.” It contented itself with spitting a little disdainful steam on the out-of-breath “sportsman.” 

“One never bathes twice in the same stream,” the philosopher Heraclitus used to say. However, the same people always turn up again! They go by, at the same time, gay or sad. You, passers-by in Ravignan Street, I have given you the names of Historical Defuncts! 

Black! Black!
A driven man!
Black! Black!

Mr. Yousouf forgot his umbrella
Mr. Yousouf lost his umbrella
Madame Yousouf, someone stole her umbrella

And what did you see, sequoia-quiet, looking out at black 
night. No islands, no kings or corridors of fury. 
But the districts where we were born, a few icy stars, 

—Like so many fine twigs 
snapped by the rainstorm
that’s sweeping this city today,

Burg, boro, ville, and wood, 
I hate those tiny towns, 
Their obligations. If I needed

In my front yard live three crepe myrtles, crying trees 
We once called them, not the shadiest but soothing
During a break from work in the heat, their cool sweat

She never knew one of us from another, so my brothers and I grew up fighting 
Over our mother’s mind
Like sun-colored suitors in a Greek myth. We were willing