The Cemetery of Père Lachaise is Closed

Abstract

Baudelaire’s keeper, the custodian, must be a man immune to sentiment— though three good hours of light remain, the stated time had come, so he made the rounds of the gates, turning locks smoothed by use, and on his face a look as final as the sound of the lock. I see him leaving the dead ones for a wife, two years his elder, heavy now, like him, full of news of one son who has called. The bread is on the table, like a bale of straw in a small pasture, a stone on a small hill, a loaf of bread beside wine whose cork slides out like the key.