“rue st. laurent”

she moved to montreal
because she had a crush
on leonard cohen
circa 1968-

she wouldn’t find
a boy like him there
but when she was an old woman
she would reminisce over
imagined love affairs
and songs written
in her honor-

what she found
was an apartment
on the rue st laurent-
a drafty loft
in a neighborhood that was safer
than she feared-

she saw monsters in every shadow-
cruel eyes in the wrinkled faces
of the old french men
who played accordions every tuesday night
in the basement of the bar
near to the bakery
at which she worked-

wishing for a home
to call for security,
she confessed her fear
to the plump woman who lived
as though the corners were
still as safe as they had been
when leonard cohen first sang ‘suzanne’-

she spoke of the scene she had scripted in her head-
the nightmare of a girl for whom the trouble
no one ever tried to take from her eyes
was as old as the battered accordions
of the men who sang songs in poor english
three doors away-
an attack, fear, violence, revenge-

the woman laughed at her-
kind, gentle laughter-
do not be ridiculous, she said,
you could never hurt anyone-

she wouldn’t have to-
she would simply make a fist-
the bullet would do the hurting for her-
and a would-be attacker would discover
it was a grave between her legs-

and as an old woman-
when the songs of her youth
sang with a melancholy
she enjoyed less than she remembered-
she knew it was not some faceless attacker
she had buried there-