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  • Spéculation Hasardeuse
  • Arthur Vogelsang (bio)

No one was learning French fast.I was learning French too slowly andSome were learning at an average speed.We had to learn it fast. There was a great planeComing for us and we had to know FrenchWhen we got on it or else.Later we found out there was no or else.We boarded the plane knowing an amount of French.Enough that the others covered for me.That was easy, I never spoke French,I never spoke. Far up over Earth and FranceWhere we floated which of course was funIn the great plane, in the great swift plane as I have said,That high, the French spoke to us in French,Numbers, “milliéme des soixante,” and other manifold numbersFor hours—division and multiplication are the hairiest,The epitome of difficult, for a non-native speaker.According to my character I did something else,No counting, no speaking French. I was thereTo float and study and be studied and do unmentionablesSo I forgot about learning French fast and I forgot aboutTheir or else, I said to myself I think I am their or else.I was not. In such a risky venture or spéculation hasardeuseI think it was decided to include somebody not fast and not smartLike a slow horse that keeps a posse at its safe pace, unambushed.The endless arguments about this had been in French and English,Back and forth endlessly they had gone at it,So we began by trying to learn French fast. [End Page 406]

Arthur Vogelsang

ARTHUR VOGELSANG’s books include Cities and Towns, which received the Juniper Prize, Twentieth Century Women, which was selected by John Ashbery for the Contemporary Poetry Series, Expedition: New & Selected Poems, and Orbit, forthcoming from the Pitt Poetry Series in the spring.

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