Paris, May 2005
Let's just say I seem to be enjoying these three chicken drumsticks
far more than the young man doing sit-ups just across the lawn
beside his girlfriend here at the Jardin de Reuilly is enjoying himself:
after all, he's huffing and puffing, and I'm sitting here, devouring
my chicken, basking in the spring sun, but now he's rolling over,
it's push-ups he's doing, push-ups right on top of his girlfriend,
and the push-ups are getting slower and slower, just as my chicken
is disappearing, and, before long, the push-ups stop altogether, he's
merely lying there on top of her, and he seems, even from a distance,
much happier than when he was doing push-ups, then he suddenly
sits up, looks up at the heavens, and stares (with an expression
of pure longing) over at me. Oh, he seems to be saying,
I sure wish I had some chicken.
"Desire" by Michael Blumenthal, from No Hurry: Poems 2000-2012. © Etruscan Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission
