Street Music

I dreamed it was November 1930
Walking east on the Boulevard St-Germain
toward the Odeon, just past the rue Kelver
(a cross street that in fact never existed),
in the midst of people hurrying (it was cold
and getting late), I saw a woman crouched
against a wall, bundled in a scarf and a cheap
light-blue overcoat. She held an accordion
that appeared to be made entirely of wood.
Its notes could have come from a muffled xylophone.
A glimpse of her small, half-turned-away face
showed her to be at least eighty., which meant
she'd been born around 1850, if not earlier.
I felt exempted from my whereabouts,
carried back to the middle of the previous century.
The thought of her life coming forward from then to this
particular moment in this city in this dream
I knew I was dreaming was like a pool of water
I wanted to reach into for what glittered there.
But I couldn't stop to give her a coin - the money
in my pocket hadn't been invented yet.