‘Is she as good as she looks?’
Asked a stranger to an old man carrying
The wicker basket where she blithely lay,
As he strolled her, along the sunny avenue

On a warm spring day.

‘Try her,’ he answered, handing her over
With a smile to the curious stranger
Abruptly abandoning the hand
Of his new Italian lady friend

To grasp her.

He touched her, smelled her and palped her
Until, swiftly bored of holding her,
He approached the swaying pushchair
Dazzling the little girl in it by waving

The gleaming sphere afore her marvelled eyes.

‘She is yours,’ he told her, handing her over
With a smile to the happy toddler, needing to hold her
With both her tiny hands. Little did he know
She would have lost her, a few hours later,

Dropping her on emerald grass.

In the park, the lecherous sun kissed her,
Bathed her, scorched her, an incandescent love affair
Until, kids saw her, deemed
She would make for an excellent football,

So they played with her. Nightfall

Stranded, forsaken and forgotten
Darkness was cold, immobile she shivered
Until cockcrow, when a happy-go-lucky jogger
Picked her, enchanted by her beauty

Gently placed her on the chess table

Around which from dawn to dusk the elders indulge
In fantasising strategies aimed at stealing queens,
When they arrived, they kept her by their side
Until, an elegant leering passerby pointed at her

Silently demanding permission to take her.

The elders nodded, permission granted
She was delicately escorted
To a large, luxurious, modern apartment,
‘Finally, a well-deserved respite,’ she mused

Until, the man brought her to the kitchen,
Laid her on the gelid marble worktop, grabbed
A long, white, ceramic knife and cut her
In half, squeezed her, poured her into a glass

And drank her.

[Featured illustration: Ceci n’est pas une orange, Artist unknown]