← v1n1, Spring 2002
Poetry · Volume 1, Number 1

Chestnut

A silver mist hung along the Paris street

As she walked wrapped in a brown cloak woven

Some years before she was born & at

The corner of the Rue de l'Odeon

A chestnut seller stood holding out to her

A paper cone of split nuggets

Hot marrons & as she thought of those

Distant magnificent limbs of the Ardèche

She passed over a few francs then held her face

Above the dark steaming stones warming her lips

A moment before prying open one of the

Hard fruits with her raw fingers

Then sucking the searing gray meat onto her

Tongue where her familiar silence had only

A moment ago so precariously hung