trout

France

Gregory O'Brien

Printemps. The bearded insect on your shoulder
means you should have taken the first turn

past the wind-blown palm which conducts
traffic at the carrefour. Then turned right again

at the first grey cat past the yellow awning which grizzles in
the southerly  which is at least partly responsible

for the state of the nation and the headlands where, last
summer, an ocean-liner collided with a tree. A thin flap of

cloud, a tick, attests to this, or casts a quiet vote in favour of
proceedings. Carry on along the waterfront

until the pebbles on the beach have been replaced
by supple-bodied youths, past the cape where

the Mediterranean drowns its architects and Katherine
Mansfield bodysurfs for all time — tubercular rattle of pebbles

in the backwash — and where the horizon lines up its ships
much the same way a white line beside the Jardin Biove

juggles pedestrians on wet days and occasionally
drops one. Or how the sun always seems complicit in

its own absence, like the horn-player sitting out an oratorio of such
length that, by the end, he has forgotten

how to play his instrument. But still manages
a few notes, some phrases thrown together. And somehow

it ends perfectly. The perfect
conclusion to anything. L’ete.