Poem du jour

Visiting Europe
by Bill Manhire


Visiting Europe. We rush around and look at famous stuff.
Once in the Louvre, late afternoon with my six-year-old son,
- he has truly had enough - we meet the Mona Lisa.
It's 1981. I lift him above the world's admiring heads.
That lady, I say - we don't know why she's smiling.
What do you think she's thinking about?
Money, he says. Money.