Nicholas Murray

Walk

En quoi un homard est-il plus ridicule qu’un chien, qu’un chat,
qu’une gazelle, qu’un lion ou toute autre bête dont on se fait suivre ?
J’ai le goût des homards, qui sont tranquilles, sérieux,
savent les secrets de la mer, n’aboient pas…

I see de Nerval coaxing his lobster,
on a leash of blue ribbon.
He has made his case
for preference of pet:
because it does not bark
and knows the secrets of the sea.
 

In this morning’s market
the great crustaceans twitch;
a pair of claws squeezes the air;
liquid eels in slippery ranks
slither on stainless steel;
a salmon sleeps in a drift of ice.
 

Those bloody aprons,
that pink tump of guts
coiled like a frivolous dessert,
enforce a preference for
the Bois – poet and homard,
like a pair of lovers, hand in hand.