The apartment

A large apartment on the Rue des ____

my entrance uncertain,

   reflecting unease:

   what am I here

   why did this woman

I do not know have never met

leave me this apartment

in her will no one can say will say

not even her attorney

   with the waxed moustache

   he shrugs, merely,

   like only the French do

I’ve only been to Paris once

The rooms are large, or seem large,

tall ceilings like open skies

above shining boulevards.

Neighbors stand at the door

and watch, reluctant to accept

my invitation to enter.

A recluse, they say, she was

a recluse, most of us did not meet

The gift contained this instruction:

find the treasure

I stare at clutter, decades

of accumulation, love affairs

but no family, books in the French

I do not read or speak,

small watercolors and framed prints

of famous oils clutter the walls

as if she’d been afraid to allow

any open space to be seen

and dust

Too much furniture,

magazines and newspapers stacked

and measureable with yardsticks

or is it meter sticks in France

Two floors and a basement,

a basement opening to the walkway

along the Hugo-esque sewer, basement

walls enameled like deep blue cloisonné,

urn-like, as if the apartment was a bouquet

arranged in its funerary vase

a tiny, rather bare kitchen suggests

the lady dined out,

often

Each room replicates the pattern

of dust and clutter and too much

furniture, inundated with clutter,

strangled, clutter hiding whatever

treasure lies here; who could know

no television set or radio or computer

or even empty spaces where they]

would have been placed

A moment’s panic as I hear a mob

of young teenage girls, like wolves,

beating on the door, demanding

   entrance.

I imagine them with pink hair, black

leather jackets, gang-like, each with

knitting needles. They go away,

   bored

The party (the neighbors) finally arrive

with cheap wine, baguettes and cheese.

One brings grapes. They laugh

and smoke, the clutter offering

an infinity of ashtrays. Only the French

still smoke, I think, and perhaps the Turks.

Only one speaks English and translates

for me and the rest. Finally they leave,

first demanding a view of the basement

and its walls and its doorway to the sewer.

They heard stories, they say, but can’t

remember them

The clutter is overpowering

I walk to the full-length bedroom windows

pull back heavy curtains of equal parts

dust and brocade and it is on the balcony

I find the treasure:

the view 

Photograph: an apartment in Paris that was literally untouched for 70 years, by Paris Design Agenda.