Poetry by Pascale Gillet
LoveX4
The trees have their loves though they’re different from mine
Trees, treason is not yours, but birds’ enduring love and branches to leap from
Have, not have? You said you were mine once but now is different
Their leaves and their bark fall or grow but where their root is is where they are
Loves a husk that loves a seed that needs a Spring to give a bud though
Though you said once as though you meant it: “A hare runs, a man loves
They’re no stranger to each other. They’re leaping up the hillside in their
Different ways but crave an embrace not different from that love you have
From that heart you give.” You turned away from me since. Hares’ loves are not trees
Mine was a love with no root. I wish mine were a tree and to that tree a hare I would tether.
Chinese whispers/Translation machines
(From English to French and back again. A few times, and via Chinese)
Antoinette at a banquet
said to Jeanette who ate
a tart and a lemon sorbet,
« As for you Jeanette,
of your long tête-à-tête,
(with Petit Jean)
I am quite au fait. »
Jeanette was gone with a pirouette,
and Antoinette cried in her serviette.
Antoinette is a banquet
Jeanette said,
eating cake and lemon sorbet.
“Jeanette,
(short Jeans)
The head one too long
I totally salt. ”
Jeanette disappeared, strike
They cried, Antoinette,
and in his briefcase.
BATHTIME
To speak English, they told her, you must listen to it.
Every night in her bath, on medium wave she caught it.
Year after year after year and she never learned it.
Now that the husband’s buried and the cat’s gone for good,
Sometimes in her bath she’ll whisper, moderate or good.