RUE SAINT-RUSTIQUE

September 23, 2025 / John Grimmett

Once, I walked through
the streets of Paris
with a body I did not yet understand:

I carried no map,
only the wild confidence of someone
who believes summer
never ends.

Not long after,
I learned to linger beside rivers,
how to touch flowers
with the tip of my nose.

Now, I think of that self
as a traveler might recall a village
where the fruit was too sweet,
and the air
was almost unbearable in its abundance.

It was a sharp inhale,
and I inhale sharply now:
youth was a country I passed through
with no thought of departure.
I bought nothing,
took no pictures.

Still, I remember:
the wind,
the taste of salt,
the way the sky bent down
to meet me.

And isn’t that what we do,
all of us—
wander in our own beginnings
like tourists,
pockets empty,
hearts astonished,
before we learn the cost
of leaving?

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