May 6

 

Tremulous and secretly bitter,

they booked passage

and made their way through

that other Europe

at the far end of the Thirties—

they wandered up and down the Rhine,

aimlessly,

ate and drank, walked in the

shadows of the vast white mountains,

slept in the lowlands,

abruptly awoke in the dark,

lit a cigarette, thought about

the coming end of things,

passed the cigarette

back and forth, saying nothing. 

 

Sitting up, one of them

remembered how,

when a relative

had unexpectedly died

there were the sudden movements,

the tense

trill of strangers,

the wan gestures, and a patchwork

of listless untouched food

on the long covered tables.

 

Another cigarette, the deep breath. 

In the shadows,

in that time, there seemed nothing to do

but breath deeply,

put out the cigarette and then the light,

hold one other,

listen to the laughter upstairs,

the couple, their abandon,

feel the cool stare of the unseen flesh,

feel the porous moon of that moment in that

dark place.

 

The newspapers say that the National Guard is being sent to Costa Rica to build roads, and when all the roads are built, they will build cities which the US Army will use for target practice.  There is a concern that our munitions will not perform in the jungle.

The National Guard will put this worry to rest.  The press will attend and reassure us.

 

The boat docks,

and the train awaits, sweating and crowded,

and its metal heart sears the tracks,

and the sound of the

melancholic bell lingers.

 

We talk and remain silent,

smoke and put away our cigarettes,

hold one another and are estranged,

feel the urgency of voyeur time

and no time at all.

 

We think about the end

and the end of the end,

 

without the wan gesture,

without the untouched food.