I wanted the avocados�
I didn't want the avocados.
I wanted something
that cost too much, that
felt too smooth
on my tongue,
that would torment me
with its absence as it would
with its presence.
Every week
I never passed them
with indifference. Imagine�
all those weeks
I wanted avocados
and told no one!
I wanted anything
I couldn't have�
what I wanted perhaps,
was to become one
with the culture
of wanting,
in a world of want.
One united body
of cells fused
with desire, the moving
target perhaps of another's
desire�the potential
right arm of the right man.
Wanted and wanting,
united, I steered my cart
down the market's
gleaming avenues, one
with this nation of desire,
with the luxury, to want.



�1999 by April Ossmann
First published by Harvard Review