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LA GARE SAINT-LAZARE
AS EUROPE FALLS
Thou wilt fall backward when thou com'st to age.
Romeo & Juliet: The Nurse
In this stonewalled alley the city
is a throaty cello-note falling
from the low brown sky; a match flares
in a doorway, and the pallid
spillage of street-lights catches
their high-heeled boots. No, not
the plump mulatto in the fur collar,
rain dribbling down her out-thrust thigh;
I prefer the high-breasted one—
pure, white, made of my own history.
(While the gatecrashers crowbarred open
his daughter's dowry-chest—
as she lay giggling on the dining table
amid the porcelain and scattered silver—
the last arch-duke, his wrists
open, relaxed in his lukewarm tub,
and the water turned to wine.)
With damaged fingernails milady
hoists her dark skirt and gropes
for my crotch. But her mouth—
flexing dark scarlet in her foggy face,
speaking the formula: Tu as du feu,
chéri? —is Little Miss Muffet's.
The lazy soot-fringed eyes
roll like a tipped-up doll's.
Gauche sweetie in your ragamuffin frock,
who have ridden the pin-striped
cock-horse of an old man's leg — pat-a-cake,
pat-a-cake, broker's man—
touching the frosty stubble of his jowl,
you are recognized, my love. I'd know
those pale knees anywhere, those
ill-fitting kneecaps. Phyllidula,
Dulle Griet, Amelia-Anne. Ouvres ta robe,
Déjanire, que je monte sur mon bûcher.
And pray for us now, Lord Lazarus,
Prince of Untouchables, as we
fumble our ways in the dark. (The palace's
ruins smolder; the jack-booted troops
lug their spoils through the rainy streets.)
   
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