Breakfast - Jacques Prévert (translation by Lawrence Ferlinghetti)

He put the coffee

In the cup

He put the milk

In the cup of coffee

He put the sugar

In the café au lait

With the coffee spoon

He stirred

He drank the café au lait

And he set down the cup

Without a word to me

He lit

A cigarette

He made smoke-rings

With the smoke

He put the ashes

In the ash-tray

Without a word to me

Without a look at me

He got up

He put

His hat upon his head

He put his raincoat on

Because it was raining

And he left

In the rain

Without a word

Without a look at me

And I       I took

My head in my hand

And I cried.

If no one ever marries me - Laurence Alma-Tadema

If no one ever marries me,—

And I don't see why they should,

For nurse says I'm not pretty,

And I'm seldom very good—

If no one ever marries me

I shan't mind very much;

I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,

And a little rabbit-hutch:

I shall have a cottage near a wood,

And a pony all my own,

And a little lamb quite clean and tame,

That I can take to town:

And when I'm getting really old,—

At twenty-eight or nine—

I shall buy a little orphan-girl

And bring her up as mine.

PARABLE OF FAITH - Louise Glück

Now, in twilight, on the palace steps

the king asks forgiveness of his lady.

He is not

duplicitous; he has tried to be

true to the moment; is there another way of being

true to the self?

The lady

hides her face, somewhat

assisted by the shadows. She weeps

for her past; when one has a secret life,

one's tears are never explained.

Yet gladly would the king bear

the grief of his lady: his

is the generous heart,

in pain as in joy.

Do you know

what forgiveness means? It means

the world has sinned, the world

must be pardoned—

Telemachus' Guilt - Louise Glück

Patience of the sort my mother

practiced on my father

(which in his self-

absorption he mistook

for tribute though it was in fact

a species of rage--didn't he

ever wonder why he was

so blocked in expressing

his native abandon?): it infected

my childhood. Patiently

she fed me; patiently

she supervised the kindly

slaves who attended me, regardless

of my behavior, an assumption

I tested with increasing

violence. It seemed clear to me

that from her perspective

I didn't exist, since

my actions had

no power to disturb her: I was

the envy of my playmates.

In the decades that followed

I was proud of my father

for staying away

even if he stayed away for

the wrong reasons;

I used to smile

when my mother wept.

I hope now she could

forgive that cruelty; I hope

she understood how like

her own coldness it was,

a means of remaining

separate from what

one loves deeply.

Telemachus' Detachment - Louise Glück

When I was a child looking

at my parents' lives, you know

what I thought? I thought

heartbreaking. Now I think

heartbreaking, but also

insane. Also

very funny.

I Feel Safe When You Lie - Derrick Brown

In somno securitas.

She slid into bed

easy as a knitting needle

into the spine of a hare.

I threw a bag of chalk into the air

across her body

while she slept.

Little rabbit.

I lit black lights into action

watched the frenzied prints emerge

from her breasts, neck, and thighs,

souvenirs of desire.

I breathed across her tight, sand-tanned stomach.

Chalk dust blew into her nose and she awoke.

I asked her

If the man made love to her with all his might?

Did it feel the same?

Did his beads of sweat fall upon the necklace I worked for?

Did he extend the milky antennae of her legs into the air?

Did you tune in God on the meat hook channel?

She said:

“My dear.

Slow, jealous detective,

Come sleep by me.

These prints are yours

And always yours.

They simply will not wash away.

You have had your head in other people’s hands for so long

you forget what your own touch looked like.”

The faders of twilight approached.

I curled into her with my arms,

dead across her ribs,

feeling the rate of her heartbeat increase

as she wonders if I can feel a lie through her nightgown.

It is a feeling I get

when ice-skating through the rising crackles of sunshine.

In sleep, there is safety.