another desperate spring

Broken at the waist by revolution
or vandal, a figure in excelsius deo
waits a stony resurrection flanking
the portal of the priory. The church trembles
in its long malaria of ghosts and smog.
Late spring. Already summer’s heat.

I walk up narrow Rue Gravilliers
past where a tagged mirror salutes
propped upright against a mildewed wall
waiting for collection, too.
A beggar mumbles bien bien
- this is the poetry of presque rien

channeling the oral tumult of my brain
which like yours is all worries and sex.
I pass the goddess in her natural human size
at the street crossing where the shadow
of a sparrow pursues presque rien
and its me mumbling bien, bien.

- Karen Chamisso