The Empire’s train rolls west from Pressburg’s heights;
I fall from sleep to sleep, dreaming of clearwings,
thousands, flying over father’s meadows,

their movement legato—a shimmer over staffs
of sweet grass, sweeter than any music
I could make now, past what’s pure, past all belief

in unadulterated signs of love,
those signs which father found in everything
God made—a butterfly, the linden grove,

pollen dust, pearling on a mussel-shell …
He tried too hard to read the world,
as if the Esmeralda’s wing-spots could reveal

Nature’s design. He had it wrong.
His brand of faith made him see no more
than beauty where all was deception.

I now know things to be more random and exact—
­Last night, my Esmeralda, spoilt hot-house whore,
made me sick with joy between her legs. The act