Marché aux Puces

Lyrics

[Intro]
(market sounds — haggling, a music box, something glass being set down carefully)
(accordion in a gypsy jazz figure, upright bass bouncing)

[Verse 1]
Clignancourt on a Sunday
And the tables stretch like sentences
That forgot where they were going
But kept going anyway

Every object here
Has been abandoned at least once
Every teacup has a hairline
And a theory
About who dropped it

Tôi thích đồ bị bỏ — I like the discarded things
The ones that were loved
Then boxed
Then forgotten
Then found again
By someone
Who wasn't looking for them
Which is how
The best things
Are always found

[Chorus]
(building — strings, clarinet, tambourine, the market brightening)
Marché aux puces, marché aux puces
The beautiful thrown-away
Marché aux puces, marché aux puces
The crack is not the damage
The crack is the résumé
A chipped thing at the flea market
Costs more than the one that's fine
Because the chip
Is where the living happened
And the living
Left a signature
That the factory
Never could

[Verse 2]
(just voice and clarinet, wandering between stalls)
I found a clock that stopped in 1961
And the stopping
Had the dignity
Of a woman leaving a dinner party
At exactly the right moment
Before the conversation
Repeated itself

I found a bowl repaired with something
That looked like spilled sunlight
And the vendor said:
The repair is Japanese
The breaking was French
And the bowl
Doesn't care about the passport
Of its gold

[Bridge]
(everything drops — voice and accordion, tender)
Tôi mang theo một túi — I carry a bag
Of beautiful defeated objects
Each one heavier
Than its size suggests
Because the weight
Includes the previous owners
And the previous owners
Left something
In the ceramic
That the ceramic
Still warms itself with
On cold shelves
In apartments
They'll never visit

And I carry them home
And I set them on the sill
And the sill
Becomes a museum
Of the fixable
And the fixed
And the never-quite-the-same
Which is the most interesting
Exhibit
In any collection

[Outro]
(market sounds return, the accordion walking away through the stalls)
Marché aux puces
(softly, carrying the bag)
The cracked, the stopped, the repaired
Tôi mang họ về nhà — I bring them home
And the home
Is more interesting
For the bringing
(clarinet plays a parting phrase — the market continuing without her)