JANUARY REVIEW

The city is a woman.

Her eyes are Absinthe.

Her voice is ice.

When she speaks,

smoke pours from her nostrils

and floats up toward the diffusion

of starlight.

 

Her name could be Ashill

or Siena or Lyon.

But she is not merely quaint,

historic or scenic.

She is Praha. Timeless and ravaged,

dripping with garnets.

 

Her cobblestone legs open

 

Here your losses are

crumbling stone steps

you navigate slowly.

 

you catch your reflection in the water

as you stroll past the Vltava.

 

You see scaffolding, think “skeleton.”

The word “excavate” seems like flesh

you might penetrate. These words

become more intimate than

“hearth” or “home.”

 

You love her because you find her less foreign

than your room back home, saturated

by the scent of musty words and turpentine.

 

She is a canvas,

a blank gessoed stare you recognize

in relief at her skyline.

 

You toast her with Becherovka, soda water,

and lime, watching jazz cabaret

alone at U Maleho Glena.

The black and white image

on the matchbooks reminds you

of Dietrich.

 

December brings less devoted tourists.

They flirt with her at the Christmas fair

in Old Town Square, sip her hot mulled wine

from paper cups, but you forgive her anything. 

 

A new year marks the anniversary

of when she took you in, a refugee

of loss with a need to lose yourself

in something other.

 

You sit down at a café near the

Mala Strana. Sketch a man with a thick

beard who sits alone in a corner,

a couple whispering into each others’ ears

a girl with sad eyes who keeps

resting her head on the heel of her hand.

 

You place the mug back on the saucer,

pick up your book and read afternoon straight

into evening.  Years later you will swear

it was a book of poems by Lawrence,

but it may have been Rilke or Gilbert or a story by Kafka.

You tip an undetermined amount of Koruna,

nod at the waiter, slide a packet of sugar

between the pages to hold your place

and walk out into the night.

 

Behind your back, the city raises

one ironic eyebrow,

winks, and turns away.