to the cowards:

You may arrest the lives of innocents

by interrupting concerts with a symphony of bullets

or detonating airplanes six miles high with a piercing bomb

Strike fear into hearts with the double bass kick of

Suicide car bombs and ball bearing vests

but still:

Flâneurs will amble along the brown Seine,

past the Chinese delis in Belleville,

past the hippodrome of Bois de Boulogne.

Idle chatter and the clink of wine glasses will reverberate

in the cafes of St. Germain des Pres,

the bistrots of Le Marais,

and brasseries of Place de la Republique.

Trains will depart from Gares de l’Est, Lyon, Montparnasse, Austerlitz,

Saint-Lazare, and Nord.

They will mostly be on time.

Morning joggers will stride through Parc de la Villette,

alongside Canal Saint-Martin,

darting past lolling tourists, old men playing petanque, students clustered

in groups with beer and cheese and bread spread out like nesting dolls.

The…