rowboats on napoleon and
josephine’s pond, fancying outselves
to be gondoliers,
standing and buongiorno-ing
red beer on the street corner
amber beneath the cathedral,
gewuerztraminer deep below
the cobblestones
in the devil’s lair.
pascal’s getaway and the beds of
kings, castle ruins in the distance.
jokes carved into the church’s pillars,
on sculptor laughing at another from
the spire, and atlast holding up the roof.
concealed courtyards, the secret gardening
and the glass bottles falling through a pit
into the sidewalk to be ground and reshaped.
the white way, bare branches like an
old woman’s arms in ever doorway.
little brother’s crowing,
leaping at my cursing,
and my mother’s wondering
how much fault we ought to lay
at my father’s door—
how much will sink him.
my child-self calls me my sister’s name
and hands me a bag of almond croissants.
the boys who once loved us give away
diamond rings to other girls.
cappuccinos under a medieval roof
at the nudelhuesli and the whisper
of a coffee cup on the marble counter
of a silent café.
my sister in a blue robe and my
old teachers losing their hair.
my heart has traveled quite a distance
these three years
but there was my honeycomb, every cell
dripping sweet and crisp and golden
riches gathered up by winged labourers.
the words i’ve not spoken in years, accented,
through the gutters, taken from me and examined,
a coin bitten between teeth and found to be true.
the still hills overtaking the paths,
looming labyrinth of the wolfschlucht
ein traum.
the coolness of a rooibos morning
the orchestra unseen over the rooftop,
the italian eis, tart summer.
the train glides away through farmland,
rising mist, graffiti in red and silver,
back to a place that will never arch at my touch,
a fern curling into itself,
tender, pale, gentle, familiar,
ruhig.
