Moments Salvaged from Ennui – Nora Rawn

April 30, 2026

Crossing the street, full complement of baguette carried into the restaurant, encircled in large arms, day’s harvest

Murmur across the gardens, dark lawn and gathered youth, take-out bags and wine bottles on the grass, cold rising of night from the ground and undeterred

Blackcap singing, its tail lifting up as the breast swells, visible in the branches and hopping lightly, one to another

Black cat leaping to the awning from its balcony, tabby pacing above and then the chase back and forth, lords of their fiefdom; crows in the plane trees in theirs, squawking at their thicketed nests

Rifling now, the man and his giant teddy bear, ‘ca va bien et vous’, the crepe du sucre much delayed and held in keeping, still warm, a yawn while walking hailed with ‘bonne nuit’, undocking the bike in time to allow another to park, now-vacant dock for filling, and the organist, unseen;

All this against the creep, the dread, the sense one can never love again, and lost the talent for friendliness, for company, attained some new hermetic seal, lives now only in the changing moon, in the coming of chilled air past sunset, sunset late but coming, good night or bad; and down the hill, across the river, the Eiffel Tower lit and shimmering, something you glimpse and then lose in the turning. Past the bus, a bike coasts ahead, a woman nestles her head on the man’s shoulder, straddling him as they move through the night. The comfort: it cannot be insult to injury when you are this distant from it.