The Swan, and Someone Replaceable

(after Charles Baudelaire) It’s not the same. I noticed it today, while dodging Rond-Point carriages. I’m not the sort who mindlessly disparages whatever’s new, but Haussman’s swept away the Paris that I loved. Thus thought the swan who’d wandered somehow from the Tuileries and limped, bewildered, frightened, ill-at-ease, his web feet scraping as he struggled on, he knew not where, uncertain why his wings were rasping in dry dust, instead of water. Nearby, a black girl on a cast-iron bench (advanced TB: I’ve come to know these things) sat huddled, shy, not knowing any French, quite lost. And Africa has lost a daughter.