Poetry from The Literary Review



Zinc Fingers

PETER MEINKE


Though scientists inform us that criminals
have insufficient zinc I've always believed
it's insufficient gold and silver that gets
them going The man who slipped his hand
into my front pocket on the jammed Paris Métro
wasn't trying to make friends His overcoat
smelled greasy and it was unpleasant holding
hands above my wallet pressed in on all sides
like stacked baguettes There was no way to move or
take a swing Still some action on my part seemed
to be called for: we stood nose to nose I tried
to look in his eyes but he stared at my chin
shy on our first date so after a while as
we rattled along toward the Champs-Élysées

I lost concentration and began to think

of our scholarly daughter working at Yale
on a project called Zinc Fingers scanning a
protein with pseudopods each with a trace of
zinc that latch on to our DNA and help
determine what we become This brought me back
to mon ami the pickpocket: I wondered
how he chose his hard line of work and if as
a boy he was good at cards for example
or sewing and for that matter what choice did
I have either so when we reached our stop and
he looked up from my chin at last I smiled at
him and his eyes flashed in fear or surprise and
I called It's OK as he scuttled away
Tout va bien! though I held tight to my wallet


______
Editor's Note: From Zinc Fingers, (c) Peter Meinke 2000, reprinted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.