Yves Montand
You are like a young one, she said,
With belle accent frauduLEUX
A young French boy
surfing our amber waves
A young French boy
waving from the pampas,
from a bull’s sight line
from the wrong side of the fence,
of the pond, of a language.
So difficult, she understood, to be
on the wrong end of an accent
thrown up like a faux wall,
if we may borrow that word.
Mais oui, ignore us, if you please.
This is what we do. So we do
with your kind permission.
We play our greatest roles,
wearing comfortable capes.
With the young French boy,
now a man, we pulled capers
we concocted in the streets
of Sevilla, rehearsing them
as though we’d known
the secrets of performing
someone else’s life.