A Night in a Vanquished Country


I am a guard of the Cross still and a man of my country, even as I see from the hill, by fires, the sawn descent, the resting desolation. Whoever else has fled or has taken off his helmet and his rose to stand in his house or bury or steal is beneath my keep or kingdom, my valor and my compassion. Let them spend out their character, expecting their murder. For, suddenly, one is no longer a virtuoso or dissolute, one has no concept of a delicacy or likes clouds; there are no shared labors, no paideia, no strangers. Tomorrow you will look into a vault of sunlight and ask, Who needed these machicolations? What beasts are on the shards of pottery? The timetable for a train that is apocryphal is the only working clock, the world stops at the last newspaper. You can have or not have a night in a vanquished country and either can be most usual. And though whatever you have stolen is past your example and there is no family or friend to beg for you or bribe, seeing as how there are foreigners in the palace, I will keep you as a thief on the Cross beyond your life, and cover your face with straw, mourning as you do all night, remembering how my beloved once splashed me at a trough. I will prevent the glory of your custom.

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            © Habley Mouse, a Private Press, 2006.  All rights reserved.  (Poetry by William Frank)
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