Here for their summer programs,

to speak household French, or English,

they come arm in arm

chatting down King’s Parade,

in the evening, after dinner,

& laugh together over the bridge of Cam,

then turn down a narrow street,

& I follow, leaving my own turning

far behind, in the plume of exuberance,

as if absorbed by their company,

before they break up, enter Clare College,

& go to their rooms,

leaving the street, the soft summer night,

& all that’s in it resounding with girlishness.

Poems of Michael Gessner have appeared in Amaranth Review, American Literary Review, Chiron Review, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Nimrod, Oxford Magazine, Pacific Review, Patterson Literary Review, Sycamore Review, Wisconsin Review, and others.  Poems that appeared in his fourth title, Beast Book, (Blazevox, 2010) have been described as "lively and smart and musical," (Robert Pinsky.)