European Tour
Vienna is clean and flat.
We tire quickly
of marble, orange-seamed
like blood under a microscope;
of palace ceilings telescoping upwards
this tricksy trompe l'oeil all over.
The flu I caught in Munich lingers,
catching at my throat.
You perk up briefly
at the exhibition
of tiny piano keyboards
concealed in cabinets eight feet wide.
More marble. Inlaid ivory.
I wait and cough below St Stephen's,
the zig zag roof like a bad tie,
winding my scarf too tight.
I find my voice in Salzburg
but you're already singing,
climbing every mountain
as if there'd never been
a single lonely goatherd.
April 2002
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