Thursday, 18 February 2010

Pho by Hugh Behm-Steinberg

How happy to be with a soup belly,
make careful sloshing steps.

To eat all the noodles with chopsticks,
eat beansprouts, flank. Which is delightful,

to eat soup without a spoon, tilting the bowl
up like an offering to the end of manners,

a bipod of your elbows on the table sliding
subtly, little circles, the gift of soup, that

and the need for a new shirt, napkins
to scrub my beard, the steam on my glasses

putting the world away, as if there is
no world I need besides what I’m holding,

and maybe what I’m now carrying inside me
is a big soup baby, oh Mary don’t be jealous,

you know how I feel.


Hugh Behm-Steinberg, CA, USA

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