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Drink here and you need thank no one -
not the iron frog waiting on its haunches
for the game to start, his maw-pouch frozen open
on a croak that's been forthcoming
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a hundred years. Not the barman, whose Flemish greeting
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grates in the throat, nor the waitress leaning
her breasts on your dark table
misted with froth. Much less the wind of Flanders
outside, the crust at your eyes' corners,
the sails that strain and shiver
till the bones creak. And least of all
the land itself, the crooked carpenter
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who gave this place its name, his work undone,
an airy skeleton, his price
too high, the priest holed in the tower
on a mess of tarnished plate.
This March evening,
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greasy with beer and sunset,
the sky moves
in a spreading blur of blood,
leaves the dark earth standing.
(A
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iS)
