–Ecrit par L’Automate de Maillardet
From the long view, the wetlands stun me—
patches of long grass sway
like dauphinesses lost in a troubadour’s voice.
But up close, Mademoiselle,
the green is sickly.
Old tires and gnarled rust protrude,
orphan shrubs of oil and mud.
I lie in it anyway,
for a little while,
feel the softness of earth.
Once the one-eyed girl whispered a story:
She found a garden behind a tenement,
a small garden with a few sad carrots.
She lay among them and covered her face with soil,
then planted a single seed
above her socket.
As she spoke, her blushing impelled me
to draw her a ship.
I hoped she understood I meant to take her away
one day, away
from this soot-black city
of regret and excrement
to a fertile land where from every branch,
like fattened fruit, hangs a single green eye.
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