Les Fantômes de Marseille

***Les Fantômes de Marseille***
(#StorytellingSalemStory #999,990 out of 1mil:)

🎶So I’ve been travelling across the country—
town to town/city to city/State to State;
sitting down in random locations—
across this Nation— with a whiteboard in my haaand;
I’ve been asking pplllll:
“What’s Yor Story?”🎶

But this time, I wasn’t Stateside!
When I was up in Marseille, France; a street cleaner in neon yellow coveralls, earbuds dangling, and a busted-up paperback hanging out o’ his vest pocket; walked past me near the edge of an open-air market. He stopped, read the sign, scratched his chin with a gloved hand; & verbalized:

⸻

“I read while I walk. That’s my trick.
Poetry. Mostly old stuff.
Stuff that’s no longer ‘happening.’
(I tuck it into the pocket where I keep the ticket pad I never use.)

I clean up after people who don’t see me. Every morning, I pick up the things they dropped on the way to being busy.
Apple cores, cigarette butts,
receipts for things they didn’t need.

Sometimes, I pretend each piece of trash is a clue.
Like I’m some detective of the mundane.
Piecing together what kind of morning someone had
-based on a crushed croissant & some smeared lipstick stain.

I know the city better than the mayor.
I know which corners smell worse after rain.
Which benches house the same two lovers every Thursday.
(Which alley cats prefer fish guts over bread).

One day, I found a wallet. Thick. Black, leather. Tourist. American, (I think). I opened it to check for ID. There was a photo of a dog; a golden retriev. No cash. No credit cards. Just the puppy. And a metro ticket folded into a triangle (with the words: “Never Forget” -written within).

I left it on the same bench for three days, just in case.
No one came. But the bench felt different after that day.
Like it had hosted something important.

That’s the kind of thing I remember.
(As I go through my daily walks.)
Not the trash; but the strange little ghosts surrounding them.
(The memories that each of these benches/fountains/& steps carry with em. They come to life- when you look for em.)
Marseille is full of such little ghosts;
(left behind- like a memory that: ‘something happened;’)
’round every -street/alley/market/park/& corner- you find yourself walking within.”
(The city never forgets, rather, it comes to life -right now- with all the memories- of what’s happened & is presently: ‘happening.’)
⸻

And then his broom handle tapped twice on the cobblestone, like punctuation, and walked off; earbuds back in, eyes down—& looking for another ghost who’d say: ‘Bonsoir~ Mon Chér~’

🎶et moiii?
I stayed just outside the market stalls
where fresh bread met the sea breeze;
my whiteboard still balanced on my knee,
asking,: “What’s Yor Storyyy?”🎶

(#StorytellingSalemStory #999,990)