Interstate by Chard deNiord

Author:Chard deNiord [deNiord, Chard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780822981183
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press

Augustine’s Pears

For the sake of a laugh, a little sport, I was glad to do harm and anxious to do another, and without thought of profit for myself or retaliation for injuries received! And all because we are ashamed to hold back when others say “Come on! Let’s do it!”

—AUGUSTINE

“O taste and see!” I called to the others, for it

was foul and I loved it: the mere idea of stealing

them—the mauve safou—from my neighbor’s tree,

a sweet desire my mind’s dark tongue

was first to savor again and again before

my other tongue, so pink and dumb. But this

was before I suffered grace, which has no fruit

and scrubs the soul of any interest in fallen

things, except for these confessions that lie

exposed like grilled oblations for famished angels.

So, I shook the branches from top to bottom and tasted

a few that weren’t as sweet as I thought they’d be

but hung like plunder enticing me in women’s

voices to snap them off and stuff my pockets,

then slip away undetected to sweeten

the swill for the swine back home who roam

their sty like former men with a terrible hunger.

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