Peter
Waldor
Lips
My love, our lips
are four knives
asleep in the drawer.
Last ones left.
The rest are out
for the usual butchery.
There has been peace
here all evening.
All the craftsmen --
the wood cutters,
the silversmith,
gone for good,
even the glassblower
who puffed
the knob that has gone
unheld all evening
is gone.
Nose
Oh dear why weren't we Polish
noblemen like normal people,
my mother on a divan chatting
with the Cracow Count,
my father away at cavalry,
my mother's nose one stroke
from the Japanese watercolor
on the felt wall at her back.
It is the indefatigable Count
who offers the comparison
and my mother, my mother
pretends she does not hear,
tapping a mahogany arm,
a fist of blond hair in a bun.
A Map
I led my father up a mountain.
On top, we laughed in the spring snow,
I, who look like his mother, and he
who does not look at me for the memory.
I gave him a map, which he lost
before we started, no matter to him.
Later, in town, we saw a breeze
knock off the blossoms
from a cherry tree.
Peter Waldor
