In a room of gold, I am
smoking.
The parade of beautiful
boys and women
have long since gone.
Along with the letters
and packets
of photographs.
Yesterday
G. read my cards:
tarot, through the white, pink
static of the television set.
Child, he said,
you are a bone.
You must leave
everything,
burn it all down
to the ground.
In the Polish black and white film
I sit inside the parked white sedan,
disguised as a boy
in oversized black
slacks, white tank, and pale pink
satin bomber jacket.
My hair is bleached
and cropped.
My hands are tied
behind my back.
I am moving
my lips
as if
in whisper.
As the camera moves nearer
I murmur
though barely, I may be
disappearing.
I am devouring
small chocolates wrapped in bright plastic.
Parked outside the high-rise
apartment
of the Warsaw
housing project.
(Inside, teenage-children smoke
and carry over-sized stuffed animals. )
There is nothing
I would not do.
Everything
I once knew,
is gone.