Jan Wagner



sheep, rooster, duck

 

September 19, 1783

 

versailles, its park, all still half asleep,
when from its orbit the balloon floats clear
away. thus claim all historical docs.

 

no parliament, no riot, just folk –
and his majesty, surrounded by the sweep
of counts, the mistress, and the master

 

with his telescope, in which the round cup
of the lens hovers. and with one hack
the rope is severed – should it foster

 

our memorial, that what passed here
by the weathercock will never sleep?
a ball of silk trundling in the hook

 

of wind, vanishing over barges tossed here,
our subjects sheep and rooster and duck
in their basket barely audible, not a peep

 

from any one of them. in god’s blue sack,
only pigments, nothing more. and now the rooster
comes, the duck, and finally the sheep.


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