"Prague"
Inspired by Joseph Stroud's Providence
I want to tell you how I carried you
through the streets like illuminated text,
the blue of you a satin ridge
under my fingers. How you walked with me
as I caught cobblestones in my camera, the click
of heels like hoofbeats in the silence.
Vltava River was green stasis, the slow motion
of our distance stretching itself away. And now,
I am trapped on the Charles Bridge
among perfumed tourists and urine.
My body curls into itself, nerves contracting
fingers and toes as if death has already begun.
Sometimes the sky is so full
of itself, just before nightfall,
blue welling up in my eyes like rain
on the copper domes. I spurn this strange
and familiar city like a rejected lover,
bear witness to the empty strum of a milonga
in the chapel, smoke filling my lungs
in the bars and streets, drunks staggering
out from neon clubs. Where am I among them?
And where aren't you? Light pours out
of you through the stained glass windows
of St. Peter’s, bruising the floor
with its brilliance. You are the gothic curve
of the nave, looking down at me,
a sinner unable to keep you.
I finally buried you at the cemetery of Vyshehrad,
somewhere between Dvorak and Smetana,
near the neat graves of poets and noblemen.
The church bells pealed and pealed.
Even the wind chimed.
© 2007 Emusing (Lois P. Jones)
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