Tonight is the last supper, Brother. We will have to eat and go out In different directions, into different storms.

You will be lost to me, I know this Even as we wave our handkerchiefs from Our respective boats swaying at the quay, shouting

“Soon, very soon we shall meet and feast At one of the ports, perhaps one full of exotic smells.” Cairo was it? Or Dover with its rainy squalls?

Others will enter and leave these stations. Carousels will revolve and record their numbers. We will be travelers who always miss

Their trains or be those on smoky station platforms Who wait for someone who never comes. At the level crossings I will watch for you

And you be sure to watch out for me. This is the pretense We will have to learn to keep, the first trick We will have to perfect as we deal and receive our cards.

Now here is the bread, not my body, Now here is the wine, not my blood. Now eat, drink and laugh if you can. Tomorrow I shall be taught how to grieve.

for Kiran

All of you undisturbed cities, Have you ever longed for the Enemy? – Rilke

In a city, in an anonymous century At evening, fighting fire with fire Someone is grafting these lines

Onto streets, which funnel winds through them, Full of smells: spittle, urine, crack and muggers. Where immanent danger seems greater than the imminent.

Where has madness gone to hide? Laughter these days is that of horrors. Heat assailing the body is that of a fever.

The disinterested life leads to disenchantment with Numerous playthings such as switch blade knifes Or the more easily switch able bodies.

The only refuge from the Enemy is the Enemy himself. See there, he is up on the stage. In this age when guitars become Axes, music becomes fire thrown from the catapults.

In this evening when everyone conceals A Hiroshima, Dear, how does it matter how large or bloody Is the force of the foe waiting for me At the gate, just beyond the end of this line?

This desire you harbor is weak. It is a spider spinning a web Hoping to join two chairs. There is no union in this Many holed net. First learn To melt the iron of ego. Then God will teach you how to weld.