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PLACE DE LA POSTE
Let it begin now, with stalks of grey grass
rooted to dead ground and stripped
of seed, with dust dulling the blue and white
glass beads of the wire wreath
and the frayed black ribbon: in pacem .
A tractor grunts behind the cypress wall.
The gate is broken, one post
of white stucco propped
against a bicycle frame and a topless table.
He slid his glass towards her,
but she shook her head
and turned to the window and the street.
But we are still young, he said.
We have nothing to stay for.
The street is empty, we say,
when there are no people. The grocer's
shutters are fastened, and the tomcat
on the steps of the post-office sleeps.
A green beard drips from the fountain's beak,
and on the rim is a sleek stain.
She thrust her crushed handkerchief
into her purse and rose, his lifted hand
failing to touch her.
So you will stay, he said.
Dry weeds tuft the cobbles.
A dog yaps, the distant tractor whirs,
indoors someone stumbles and coughs. Sheets
swing stiffly on sagging wires
He watched until her bare head
was lost in the bonnets of the crowd-
watching, still seeing what was gone:
the dark triangle of her back, the row
of buttons, the sweep of skirt from her hips.
In a window jammed between green flowerpots
is a birdcage with a drinking phial,
a swing, a chipped squid-shell. Empty.
The door open on a wrenched hinge.
I will go, he said
   
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