Foie Gras

And every summer
There is a small family of ducks
On the pond. Bring the bread that mothers do,
Stale like a grown dog, which distracts the children
From undressed statues, who, as any cut marble might,
Enjoy the afternoon hours in ecstasy and sleep.
The garden around the water is quiet save for the odd
Kick of a motorcycle, a sound that bothers only the eldest
In the crowd.

While mother smokes
He counts the duckling who eat his bread. One
For God, two for his hands, three for the Holy Trinity, four
For bad luck in China, and the fifth to remember father by.
Numbers all which to him are only fingers
And meanings ascribed in retrospect—perhaps
After forgetting a girl’s phone number
Some years later—but for now he speaks
To the birds about nothing in particular.
If he scrapes his knee, he cries, and if not
The ducks continue to watch the bread floating in his hands.

Of course there are seagulls
Bored of the pleasures of the sea, intent
Upon disturbing the peace of Sunday churchgoers in the park.
Grey and white and more beautiful than the pigeons,
They nearly seem stupid in the way they admire
Green stained brass like old men. They refuse
Expired baked goods loudly and from the egg
To this day, their only family are their own feathers.
Their keen dead eyes obscured in the glare of bicycle tires.

And soon the summer stretches on,
Mother’s newest habit is magazines and the ducks
Keep preening. The sales have ended and the old men
Can only think of winter, though fall is yet to come.
Again he counts the ducklings, this time in a language
He won’t learn until university, and he stops at four
And counts again. But still his thumb stays
In the glove of his palm. Four four four, he asks mother
Through a hem of dress gesture, and she, the match fumbler,
Begins to speak like rain on a silk flower. At night in bed
With a stranger, she can sigh as another difficult conversation
Is spared through a simple dance of gulls and a duckling.