The sprinkler

Another Karen Chamisso poem.

The sprinkler

"The males stare at each other"
she said, disconsolate,
holding them in her hands
above the yellow hose, all dont-tread-on-me
folds, by some hand chopped off;

it is in the ragged hole
thrust upon that one end
that we'd thrust a coupling
-male-
and now stand clueless before the next step.

Is this so emblematic that it must lead
to these very lines? God or goddess,
do the oracles live?
The males stare at each other,
the one in the hose, the other in the sprinkler.

and not by us will such plumbing ever be joined.
"Oh fuck it: I'll water by hand,"
she says, dropping their brass to the earth.
And so we solve for a time
the problem: what do boys want?

"Il était impossible que ces deux hommes vécussent ensemble huit jours de suite,  sans que leur étrange manie les reprît..."