The Paris Riots of Spring 2006

We were talking about what to do, at the Paris Metro entrance.
I watched a girl, college age, walk past steadily, but not fast.
Though knowing the attendant was there, she looked straight ahead.
Brazenly, contemptuously, in fluid practiced motion,
she put her left hand on the ticket taker, and swung a leg up on the other.
Propelling her self up, she put both hands on the poles
and swung her legs through the gates, her body over them.
The gates clattered.  She walked away the same as before.
She was going to the half choreographed dance above
that smelled of burning plastic and tear gas,
while we were talking about what to do.