by Susanna Lang
Where you are, it is difficult to bring you gifts.
And even if our gifts could reach you
we are not sure what to offer. Someone has carved
three ducks in stone, and the hand that holds them.
Someone designed a stamp
featuring Bette Davis; and now a little girl
waits with her mother at the post office, running her fingers
over the painted curls, so much smoother
than her own. Someone remembers the sinuous line
of neck to torso, on a body he loved to touch—
now standing without legs
or arms against the white wall of an empty room.
For myself, I have emptied these French beans
into the sink. They were picked young
when they were still slender and sweet, sweet
as the beans you grew in your garden, their flesh
resistant as I snap the ends.
Where you are, it is difficult to bring you gifts.
And even if our gifts could reach you
we are not sure what to offer. Someone has carved
three ducks in stone, and the hand that holds them.
Someone designed a stamp
featuring Bette Davis; and now a little girl
waits with her mother at the post office, running her fingers
over the painted curls, so much smoother
than her own. Someone remembers the sinuous line
of neck to torso, on a body he loved to touch—
now standing without legs
or arms against the white wall of an empty room.
For myself, I have emptied these French beans
into the sink. They were picked young
when they were still slender and sweet, sweet
as the beans you grew in your garden, their flesh
resistant as I snap the ends.
Susanna Lang is addicted to reading Le Monde online.
