Königsberg

Some day the snow will fall
Sudden from the eves.
Smoke will rise from the chimney,
And the smell of baking bread
Will make my dreaming soft with pretty girls.

The winder hare will have the fox in sauce
The cathedral bells twice toll.

I totter, nursing a field mouse gray underneath my wool cap.

This stuffed tin used to contain
Cookies made with coriander.
I can smell them still,
As I can smell the letter writer
Or, if not her, then something of her.
A hint of unscented soap or
Balsam and that ghoulish monkeypaw ashtray.
Funny.
At the time, it made me realize how much I didn't understand.

I trace vaulted letters
And read them with a tea-stained voice. There’s
Poetry in the old yellow science.

Clear past the eves and the crackling coffee grinder,
The snow threatens and gives way.