Where in the long 14th street passageway between the M and 1, 2, 3 trains the two men turn to watch the backside of a woman walking in the opposite direction and one man says to the other, "I bet SHE have a JOB."

Where, during the smoke break outside the poetry reading in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the gallery owner says, "shit!" and sprints over to a woman who says, "oh!" and runs to bring her bottle of beer back inside.

Where sprinklers shoot a stream of water into the open window of the NYPD GO-4 cushman scooter parked on the bridal path, and liminal rainbows flicker in and out of view.

Where after being delayed at the airport for 8 hours and then finding out the flight is cancelled the French passengers let out a communal "aaaiii" sound that is hard to identify at first as a boo, and an American woman takes a photo of her own watch.

Where the boy eating vanilla soft serve ice-cream on the steps of Republic gets his first brain freeze and says, "my head!" and then, after a few more licks, clutches his chest and says "now my heart feels like it's getting speared!" and then eats some more.

Where a six year old boy stands up on the play structure, pulls down his pants and without anyone chastizing him releases an arc of urine through the ropes and down into the sandbox, which despite the fact that most of the parents don't come into the playground with their children is filled with cigarette butts.

Where in the playgrounds along the quaint but rank Canal St Martin, the signs advertising free children's summer music concerts seem, to a passing American, distinctly epidemiolgical and cautionary.

Where the closed, double glass French doors lend a hushed, ecclesial feel to the bedroom which smells like sex and boeuf borgingnon, and the mother, surfacing unwillingly to consciousness, realizes her son has been sitting in her bed photographing his own feet and the back of her head.

Where, like an epiphany, the blue and gold cupola appears above the monochrome walls and ceiling of Saint Paul church.

Where the bathtub is so big a four year old child taking a bath is invisible unless viewed from above.

Where it rains all day in the very bobo neighborhood of the Northern Marais.

Where the poet's poems carry her through the first round of the Literary Death Match but she loses to a British fiction writer in the bread throwing contest by failing to get the pain chocolate, the coissant, or the baguette through the mouth hole cut into a poster of Henry Miller.

Where in the masterfully planned and presevered gardens of Versailles the Polaroid technology of two ambulating Korean tourists steals the show.

Where, amidst the crowded, humid, unending splendor of Versailles the 12 year old American boy says, "I'm SO feeling the French Revolution."

Where the Bastille Day fireworks over the Seine look like luminous jellyfish and the sky between illuminations like squid ink released in dark water and the students, when not singing Beatles songs say, "it doesn't get better than this" and "this isn't the finale, I know a finale when I see a finale" and "is this really bad for the environment?" and the ceeative writing faculty trade ideas for future firework themes including "Nuclear Holocaust" and "The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict" and "Lactose Intolerance in Lights."

Where, looking up under the famous French phallus, the view is distinctly vaginal, cervix in the near distance.

Where three boys discuss Cy Twombly's Achilles Mourning the Death of Patroclus at the Centre Pompidou.

Where the ubiquitous garlands of Eiffel Tower tchotchckes look like crowns of thorns.

Where the "pop...POP" near the Syrian protest demonstration turned out to be the opening of two bottles of champagne by people picnicking on the Champs de Mars.

Where the clangor of the outdoor rock concert across the street and the accompanying shroud of cigarette smoke assail the Paris apartment through the open French doors and the father, iPhone in hand, reports, "yeah, Shaka Ponk is all over youtube!" and the 12 year old says, "are you kidding me?? They're right outside!"

Where outside the galerie l'orangerie the living, moved as only they are able, embrace.

Where every morning on rue du Bretagne there are eggs in a hole.

Where in the libertine parks and gardens of Paris, between two people so much in love, little is left to the imagination.

Where after three American poets read to a crowd of smoke-enveloped students gathered near the Seine, a good-looking squatter brings America into Shakespeare & Co in the form of three boxes of pizza, a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi, and a box of hot wings.

Where the Sunday morning bells of Notre Dame profess or pretend some perpetuity.

Where a 10 year old valiantly tries to explain to a 4 year old that "if there's no 'u' there's no 'q'" but the 4 year old picks 'q' anyway and the smiling stickman is one limb closer to hanging.