I Eat Poetry

Use The Following Construction In A Sentence
Belle Waring

Tu
me
manques

No
Nobody misses you--Me
I'm like the French the wary French

They say instead of "I miss you"
Tu me manques
You me lack

You're like the time
I stood at the blackboard 'til I cried and finally the teacher smirks
You can never divide by zero, she says, Trick question--sit down

Tu me manques
You are lacking
to me

I'm like the French
cool thinky French
There are some things I best not say

But it's safe to recount
how balletically you rode a ten-speed
the one abandoned on the street

and how you proposed before even one kiss
and how, September, when your visa came through
that red lipsticky stamp cost you

It cost
So you bolt
I break down

Then one evening, months later, this other fellow
takes me to hear a string ensemble playing Bach
like a beast with its multicolored arms rippling the rarefied light

and it makes me cry
so my hot new herringbone date pipes up
You're such a sensitive girl

Tu me manques
You
lack me

I went to a reception
It was a mistake
The councilman tried to corner me by the artist's print of the Kurdish dead

and there was no you
to shoot a look to
telegraph for help

so I said, Roll call! Excusez-moi!
Dumped my cranberry punch on his ego-shined shoes
You shoulda see me cuttin' that move

You
lack
me

Once I got home I hunkered down in my swarthy kitchen
and read some poems my student sent
and I know as I talk out of my own bones

she'll be a hit
and I'll live to see it
She lacks me not

Such a lot of things around here you'd like to glimpse
My cousin Karnay got a brand new beau
He sings right up from the roots of his feet

that kiss-me-all-over-'til-the-birds-crank-up kinda scat
You'd hit it off
You could jam all night

but you wouldn't want to come back
I'd cut clean around you like a bad accident
that the state trooper waves me right past

You lack
man
you lack

Things happen round here
that you would cry at the beauty of
you would shout

like I'm in the Metro waiting to change
I see an Amish family get on the train
and as the young girl turns

and spies me through the glass
there on her face is the most searing joy
so I wave to her

and she
without hesitating
waves back

You lack me
You're like trying to divide by zero
after everybody says

You can't
I'm like the French
the luscious French

playing those cornball accordians in the street
so they don't have to say
Come back