_       _ Has it really come to this?  Has it really come to what she wore
or what she didn’t?  Did she dab Schiap’s Shocking Radiance before
or after?  Did she transcend her rapt embrace or reinvent herself
amid the dimming lights, the off-beat symphonies,
the darkened silhouettes swatched across the starry skies?
Did she make her way down those granite steps along the Seine
or find herself amongst the rougher latitudes?  Will she ascend
into those lazy afternoons of a later life or leave everything to chance?
What were those murmurings?
What were those flutterings across the predawn grainy lights?