After a while even the language of ruin
gets run-down. Statues tire. The blue copper roof melts
through its gutters, and the bridges relax
their arches into the lazy water. It was not even a dream,
that country, but something we were keeping around
without much care, a vacuum cleaner in the downstairs closet,
quietly obstinate in persisting.
This was hardly news, that the serpent-peppered maps
with their winged ships buoyant as the overture of Die Zauberflöte
offered no real territory to penetrate.
One went anyway. For the waiters, maybe,
the way they balanced delicate glasses
on ugly brown plastic trays, their studied wish
for indifference to being cast into myth. Or for the castle
filled with live raptors and dead deer. Don’t tell me you’ve been there.
Or for the gilded art-nouveau elevator,
high above the arcade, where a dentist’s assistant
boarded at two and exited at five
and gave a most frankly appraising look, top to toe, widely smiling.
The birds are a problem.
It would be OK if there were only crows. Nourished
by the memory of violence, they look
almost human. We can handle them with latex
and anti-depressants. It’s the others, the quick, small, and melodious
and the big fierce swooping shadows, beloved of the dead gods.
They practically wring the word beauty from our faultless throats,
stealing the breath we were going to use to polish our sunglasses
with our shirt and then say dishonestly, “Yes, I’ve read it.”
Oh, for a good rifle or at least a slingshot
but where would I buy such a thing
in this neighborhood? It’s all handbags, handbags, chocolate.
Get used to gratification, say the windows
with their laser-etched logos.
Gratification is here to stay. How embarrassing.
Someone hands me a pamphlet.
It promises we are on the cusp of a general theory
of alchemy. Soon, very soon, our tin cups
will be worth the work of a thousand afternoons
discovering avoidance. Until then, the glow
of morning’s bath evaporating in the afternoon, and trams
with hundreds of strangers, each looking
so familiar he could star in the movie of your father’s life —
all of these will keep us warm and clothed.
That’s harder than answering the telephone
as if it’s always the first time you’ve called.
Like tennis or chess, it’s doubtful you will become a master,
but the cultivation is the thing,
or at least the sound of the word cultivation
as you repeat it silently to yourself in the supermarket.
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