Notre Dame – a poem by Eve Kagan

Notre Dame
 
Long before it burned, my father
and I leaned against each other
in the pews, down coats blanketing
our laps, a camera strapped across
his chest, dim winter glow
through the stained glass. Two
jet-lagged Jews in Notre Dame.
Dark wood, dark evening creeping
along the Seine, fading midafternoon
into impressionist night. I closed
my eyes, my lids weighted by vaulted
ceilings and all those crosses weeping.
I was thirteen, budding into myself,
prickly and torn. When I woke,
an hour long past, my father
snored softly into the final hours
of visitation. We were untouched,
nothing stolen or misplaced, not
even a glove. We collected
ourselves and wondered how long
we had dreamt. 

Eve Kagan is a trauma-informed therapist, educator, and theatre-artist. Her poetry is forthcoming in Eunoia Review; her personal essays and short stories have been published in various journals and anthologies, including HuffPost, Role Reboot, Mothering through the Darkness, and Dark City Lights. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.