At fifteen she understood pleasure. <br />Now an old woman, <br />she has only the memory. <br />blotches of pleasure bleed into her mind <br />like watercolour, <br />like the light that evaporates into the dark. <br /> <br />Like her I understand pleasure. <br /> <br />Desire doesn't come from a perfect body; <br />it comes from certain things. <br />It's a population that feeds itself <br />cannibalizing, breeding. <br /> <br />I want desire, <br />but for them. <br />They don't have room in their garden <br />for tomatoes or chickens <br />or quails or bamboo. <br /> <br />I am more ambitious than she is. <br /> <br />Someday, <br />the unwanted ends of the cigarettes, <br />the ones, red lipstick on one end <br />burnt on the other <br />that litter the tracks that run through the platform <br />will be mine. <br /> <br />But it wasn't me who threw them over the yellow line. <br />I will have sold them all, <br />and she will be a mannequin for my laurels.<br /><br />Matthew Christopher<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/desire-someday/
