French Guns Come Out Of Little Purses

So far as I know I’ve never met
a real-life spy and I’ve certainly
never stumbled upon a red-haired
French woman who said she was a spy
when she saw me watch her shoot a guy
in the alley behind the building
that used to be a video store.

“That’s more interesting than the movies
this place used to rent,” I’ve never said
when a woman with a silenced gun
explained that she had to shoot a guy
because he was planting devices
that piggy-backed power-line currents
and projected an electric field
that interfered with nerve impulses
propagating in spinal columns
of people living within the field
making those people chronically tired
making those people chronically glad
to get home from work and just sit back
and watch whatever’s on the TV.

“I never would have thought that French spies
would be running around the suburbs
shooting guys so that Americans
would feel they had enough energy
to do more than watch television
when they got home from work,” I’ve never
said to a beautiful French woman
as she was putting a silenced gun
into one of those little purses
with very long shoulder straps that hang
all the way down at a woman’s hip.

“There are no passports,” I’ve never heard
a beautiful French woman explain
somewhat cryptically I would have thought,
“in non-zero-sum geography.”

“But there are guns,” I never replied.

“You’re sweet,” a French spy never told me
before turning and walking away
swinging her hips the way women do
across every known geography
when they know a man’s watching them walk.

I’ve never met a beautiful spy
and I’ve never heard a cryptic phrase
like non-zero-sum geography.
Nope. I made this up. Ex nihilo.