Place du Tertre, Montmartre

She is not much. Young. Shy. American.

I’ve painted her thousands of times.

“Mademoiselle, I must have your portrait.”

She unstrings her bowed lips. Someone has told her about French men.

“I could not accept money. But allow me this: a poor artist’s pleasure in immortalizing such beauty.”

My muse dips her head, but sits. There is a diamond on her finger, but it reflects no husband in her eyes.

I start to do my thing. It is a reflexive thing. A soulless thing. The engine of my hands propels me to do it.

And it will be compensated.

My muse clears her throat.

“Perhaps we could paint each other.”

The engine sputters into stillness.

“You paint?”

“A little.”

Reeling, I offer her a canvas, some brushes. My friend provides an easel.

“We will paint each other painting?” I laugh.

She shrugs. “Just paint what you see. This once.”

And with a new, ungainly instrument, I do.

I paint an accordion player pulling music from the dissonant faces. I paint puddles of mercury convulsing the old, tectonic cobblestone. I paint the wordless conversation between two artists’ brushes. I paint the blue ribbon of a girl’s wrist, pumping red blood into this still-life heart.

I paint Pennsylvania fireflies in this girl’s eyes.

It is only while setting down my brush that I realize she is done.

“You first,” she says.

I show her the canvas.

My girl smiles. “You have painted me as I really am.”

“Your turn.”

She rotates her easel. The canvas is white.

“But you have done nothing!”

My girl finds her feet.

“Look at your painting again,” she instructs, before bowing her lips and turning away.

I look at my canvas, and see. My first masterpiece. At fifty-one.

But I cannot be troubled to care. Not with these sparks and embers igniting my heart, propelling me to my feet.

Her City of Lights has split the eternal night.

And everywhere, fireflies.

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(Last Paris vignette here)