May I Trouble You

by Cristina Nehring (June 2024)

Flock of Geese— Elizabeth Nourse, 1883

 

May I trouble you
with a burst of enthusiasm
this evening? I just
thought how sweet,
how singular, how fine,
and bold you are.
It’s like a flock of birds
passing close overhead:
they make such
Happy Commotion.
Not that they’re ever far,
the birds of my delight;
but tomorrow they may
sort themselves into
their respective nests,
all orderly and muted.
Tonight, they are aflutter,
and they sing, my dear, for you.

 

Table of Contents

 

Cristina Nehring published The Child Who Never Spoke: 23 1/2 Lessons in Fragility on October 24, 2023. She is also the author of A Vindication of Love which made the front page of the New York Times Book Review as well as two books in French. She writes for  Atlantic, Harper’s, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. She lives in Paris with her daughter.

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