The first wind of spring
reaches between the threadbare
birches, sweeping the leaves
from the white wreckage
of stone horses. Beyond the higher
branches the castle-wall rises,
clean as dust in the first
warm air. Westward, where
the road led, lie the houseless
plain and the icy peaks.
Fields of sand-colored grass
have closed over.

In the train our breath
gathered, beaded, dribbled
on the chill window. Her face
was shaded blue
under her bonnet's brim,
her hands lay in her lap, her body
swayed to the lurch of bogies.
She closed her eyes. And smiled.

In her blue dress
she is walking between
the trees, the smashed statues.

Beneath us the wheels
chattered over switches and
the brakes rocked us to a stand-
still. Soldiers with frost-scalded
faces and cloudy breath
mounted the steps, stamping
the snow from their boots;
their sour stink and foreign
voices huddled between us.

She pauses by a lopped torso
and, turning away, runs her palm
over the stained
pectoral; she fingers [no stanza break]
the marble arm-stump. Overhead
a crow is uttering
its stubborn syllable.

When I woke, the frost
on the window blazed in the first
pink fight. The sergeant
leaned forward; his hand
in its foul bandages
lay on her knee.

There are two of them
under the birches: she in her
blue dress, he in a dark cape.
They stand so close, winter
has no place between them.
Her fingers are in his hair.
His mouth is on her breast.

Caught against the hurtling
world, they turned their eyes
to mine: his yellow
as a bird's, hers pale
as the first wind of spring.