Poem: There is a Panther on the Streets of Paris | Cassandra Voices

Poem: There is a Panther on the Streets of Paris

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There is a Panther on the Streets of Paris

slinging hammocks of intent between each step,
hunting unbroken hearts beyond the senses.

No one knows.
Rumours breeze like leaves along Boulevard Saint Germain.

Another takes a table at Le Café Des Arts
indistinct in clouds of Vogue Bleu.

No one.  Not even the off-duty gendarme
whose breath caught in the branches of his lungs

when he glimpsed its paws’ dry prints
on Rue De Verneuil after rain.

A physician at Hôtel-Dieu
treated a man who claimed the creature styled

his hair with an upward rough-tongued lick;
a couple on Pont De Carrousel who swore

they were undone declaiming love,
as if their hearts were removed to make one.

An ophthalmologist looked behind fiery eyes
the day Notre-Dame succumbed

to its blood against the sky,
and the dense fur of melanistic night.

Feature Image: Denishan Joseph

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About Author

Jeremy Hughes began his writing life with poetry. He was awarded first prize in the Poetry Wales Competition and shortlisted for an Eric Gregory Award. He has published two pamphlets breathing for all my birds, highlighted at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, and The Woman Opposite. He has published two novels – Wingspan (2013) and Dovetail (2011). He has been the recipient of a Literature of Wales Writer’s Bursary. His short fiction and life-writing have been widely published, and he has reviewed fiction, poetry and creative non-fiction for such publications as TLS, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Acumen, and Oranges & Sardines. He was in the first cohort to study for the Master’s in Creative Writing at Oxford. He is a member of the Society of Authors.

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