In mid-September, one month in country,
blue sky lofty with complicated clouds,
I set out alone through the Old Town
its cobblestones, Baroque arches, narrow passages.
Bees vibrate the garbage cans in the warm air.
Slipping through the shaggy opening of stone,
I discover a public garden,
a weathered metal sculpture scattered along the footpath,
trees sagging with fruit.
A divided goat nuzzles clover like a bad joke.
Mower hay spills from its missing stomach.
Old women murmur on benches beneath the trees,
their lap dogs peeping from canvas bags,
as boys, straddling branches, pick pears
and drop them to an old blanket below.
I walk past Communist abstractions
for work, the people and homeland.
An ochre pipe rises in the garden’s middle,
an upturned L like a bare tree.
Beautiful young men,
their skin the color of persimmons,
smoke together on a bench.
They gesture as I pass Americka! Yo, Amerikanische!
Beautiful. Girl. We love U.S.! I walk faster.
One of the boys drops cat-like from the tree.
Taking a double handful of pears,
he offers them to the old women
who laugh, nudge one another,
point to their teeth. Besides, they have trees.
Their jellies have set for the season.
Opinions expressed in Terra Incognita are not necessarily shared by all or any of the editors.
La revista no comparte necesariamente las opiniones de los colaboradores.
