Two Poems

From Charles Bridge

Picture this – a Tuesday snapshot of myself, alone on a curb of what was surely Wenceslas Square. And you and your love du jour (this is Sunday) are one in the lovesick population next to me, all holding your chins in your hands, locking limbs in two by two enslavement. I might find this disgusting like I just found my life’s work for something like seventy-five cents on a half-off the half-offs table, no worn corners or tinges of love, not selling along a premium piece of real estate and false esteem. Now I am the proud owner of our home. I’ll dress the spaces in Kafka books and independence, then the emptiness won’t seem such a one-deep existence in a two-bedroom flat. Is it so scurrilous to live in this downfallen property? It’s plumbed, and on a side note this side street has electricity. Like my touch could turn this pile to fortune and back, you believe in the good and see the impossible evil inside of me. When I lay down three coins on a sale table in Prague, I expect nothing short of fulfillment. Unhand those pages and our past and see them depreciate, before your eyes wander back to your lover. And in pictures hung on the walls of your home you’ll be asking: Who might the girl alone in the middle of those chin-cupping couples be? Fishing and Other Skills he harpooner                               her hard pursuit                               off tops of tall buildings disregard the receipts the slips of paper proving lived she in dives alleyways asking for streets be followed be                               fire escapes he                               escapes dire the night that flies him places for free walks him on galaxies reigning down depths                               and back door                               interviews absorbed her the night catacomb of light aches and distilleries the lily’s evening catastrophe leaves her curled herself into poses on shelves of sun-lessened sight he met the night in brawny bond the reasons the stay exuded                               decay and twelve                               mechanical ends could promise bargains possibilities of highways beholding morning pluck the tuning fork tune key she is a saturday night in this work                               this endless enemy                               sleeping his hands a deck throw outside stones inside glass broken crawls wickedly to corners uninterrupted this word smaller than the last the tires                               tolling on them convictions are in fallen weighty on the nail stream the construction yet to be done a burned she the forest lost in the branches the dry voices she dreaming he guesses the answer wrong on occasions most important the location of extinguishers the kind that can’t                               pull back pull up                               the biteless teeth