Why do people who are truly free
need poetry?
Below the tree
where Branko Miljkovi} hung himself
the mandrake never sprung a flower.
The scarab from your eyelashes
flew away to Pomerania long ago.
The corpse of Nico
decomposed in the summer air
since nobody wanted to claim the coffin
that cruised ghostlike around Europe for days on end
like ambrosial pollen on an angel’s wing.
While she sang
some of that Berlin dust
was still settling after the storm
in her eyes.
We’ve never become like her
homeless middle-aged junkies
since that required a little bit more time
than the one that we had been
presented by poetry.