Judith Terzi

Dessèrts de saison

 

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The Art of Bending

 

--after the painting, Alcibiades on His Knees Before His Mistress

(Louis Jean François Lagrenée)
 

You spurn my touch yet bare your breast. 

We've won nine battles; alas, you wanted ten.

It's not as though I've shunned this mess,

 

milady. We'll beat them next time. Expect

a bloody feat. We'll vaporize them then.

You spurn my touch yet bare your breast.

 

Think of victory, milady, as a circumflex––

triangular feather in a cap, what lust portends.

It's not as though I've shunned this mess.

 

Our troops, they struggled as the enemy pressed.

Our Trojan horses, milady, were only pretend. 

You spurn my touch yet bare your breast.

 

These vile campaigns are but ephemeral quests,

milady. Our banners will rip, our lies will bend.

It's not as though I've shunned this mess.

 

Our uniforms have torn, our slogans evanesced.

Pitié, milady. Pitié. My honor's condemned.

You spurn my touch yet bare your breast.

It's not as though I've shunned this mess.

 

Donald Trump Responds to The Little Prince

 

Goodbye, says the fox. Here is my secret...One sees only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.

~ Antoine Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

 

We do have baobabs, little man. We call them secrets, & they spread like baobabs. What are secrets? Believe me, they're unbelievable. Very, very bad. We're trying to take them out so fast before the planet goes boom, boom, boom. Now put your hands together & clap for me, little man. Clap, clap, clap. No, I won't play with you. 55 plus 29 plus 18 plus 20 plus 28 equals 270. 11 plus 16 plus 13 plus 14 plus 29 equals 270. Am I counting stars, little man? Hey, I love stars. Love stars. Tremendous bodies. Tremendous. Bodies. What is 270? It's the invisible, little man. The invisible. I'm counting the invisible. Many people say the invisible is visible is invisible. I don't know, many people say, say, people say. We're gonna find the invisible & see what's going on. Believe me, we'll fix the invisible, we're gonna fix it, it's gonna be amazing, trust me. Amazing. Many people say, say, say. Oh, you like my funny red hat? I take it off when someone cheers me. I'm taking it off right now, so put your little hands together & clap for me. Clap, clap, clap. No, I already said it, I won't play with you. Won't play. I'm taking it off, putting it on, taking it off, putting it on, taking it off, putting it on. Off, on, off, on, off, on...Now clap, clap, clap, little man. You say we both have hair the color of wheat? Color of wheat. Tremendous color. Color. Many people love wheat.

#Ilovewheat.

 

First appeared in Columbia Journal (10/2016)

 

Grave

 

They'd bought a single plot for their two lives.

He said she'd go on the bottom, he'd be on top.

He thought for sure she'd be the first to die.

 

Their religion prescribes the depth of a plot.

She paid extra to lie deeper inside the earth.

He said she'd go on the bottom, he'd be on top.

 

My parents rest near their spot. Six handbreaths

apart. Side by side for over twenty years. 

She paid extra to lie deeper inside the earth.

 

Now divorce has come. She wants a single tier.

A tranquil place away from a freeway's drone.

My parents––side by side for over twenty years.

 

The single plot for two has sold; they'll lie alone.

Death's real estate's awarded them inflated sums.

She's bought a tranquil spot. No freeway drone,

 

but ocean breeze, a morning mist before the sun.

They'd bought a single plot for their two lives.

Death's real estate's awarded them inflated sums.

Why did he think she'd be the first to die?

 

Play It [Again], Sam

 

There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots

the faults of his feet.

~ Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

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They'd grown angrier & angrier. 

Clothing unrefreshed, cupboards 

unreplenished. Cars, tractors, trucks, 

bicycles, tricycles––unrepaired. Coal 

mines shuttered, cheddar cheese 

factories shuttled off to Shanghai, 

ball bearing to Bangladesh. Maple 

syrup to Peru. They'd waited years. 

Waited for Godot. Bare willow trees 

bordered boulevards though it was 

June. Towns ached, forklifts heaved 

under megatons of grudge. Then a lad 

spotted wheat-colored hair ducking 

into a luminous jet black limousine 

in front of a Chuckie's Pizza. Was it him? 

Was it Godot? Navy suit, overgrown 

red striped tie chauffeured into small-town 

America waiting to be taken back. 

The lad whistled, skipping home 

to report the sighting. Soon, every 

household, block, neighborhood, town 

square brimmed with the comfort 

of knowing the would-be redeemer 

had ordered an x-large pepperoni pizza 

with canned mushrooms all around & 

green pepper & onions on one half only. 

Godot became a household name, & 

the pizza was crowned "The Godot." 

It appeared on menus in pizza parlors 

all over the land. People claimed Godot 

as their Man––their Hombre––though 

they pronounced the o as an a, thus man 

morphing into hunger––hombre into 

hambre. Townsfolk screamed from 

rooftops: "Godot is our hambre." Yelled 

from trailers & pickups, bars & buses. 

Malls & strip malls. All devoured 

"The Godot," which went on half-price 

special every Friday night at Chuckie's 

& at every other pizza parlor in the land. 

Throngs poured in. They sat on curbs, laps, 

steps. Counters, hoods, railings, desks. 

They inhaled "The Godot" in every breath 

of American space. And every other 

Friday night, the green pepper & onions 

gravitated to the other side of American pie. 

 

And the people ate "The Godot." 

And the people #stillwaitforgodot.

 

Judith Terzi is the author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay) as well as of five chapbooks, including Casbah (Kattywompus) and Ghazal for a Chambermaid (Finishing Line). Recent poems appear in Atlanta Review, The Examined Life, Moria, and MacQueen's Quinterly. A poem, "Ode to Malala Yousafzai," was included on a "Heroines" episode of BBC/Radio 3's "Words and Music." She taught French for many years in Pasadena, California, as well as English at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria. A new chapbook, Now, Somehow, will be published in 2022. Bienvenue au Danse, Judith.

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