Parisian Midnight

In the Parisian 20s, my mind lives

In the hellfire my body persists

Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Stein I listen to,

My body feels the fury-the arrival of the flu.

Just off the banks of the Seine, I walk

In heated fever, I’ve lost the will to talk.

Fitzgerald tells me of Nick’s character- 

through a mushroom cloud of French-blue smoke.

My end is near, hammered to the cross-

Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Stein wave goodbye, expressing sorrow for my loss.