Only the voice of Manon, a voice emerging
out of a chorus of pimps
could bring me back after many years
to the canebrake by the sea and the lame hen
and make me understand the world had changed,
naturally for the worse, even if it was absurd
to regret or even remember
the missing foot she never knew was missing
who died in her bed of reeds
while the water-dipper rehearsed the song
which maybe you can hear in discotheques today.
II
A faintly gibbous moon
ignites the rocks of Corniglia.
The usual slate-colored bird
rehearses his homage to Massenet.
It's eight, isn't it time
to go to bed, children?
Amy Clampitt
FROM THE CORRIDOR OF A TRAIN
Yugoslavia: the scythe, the kerchief, the happy pink
of climbing roses, cherries ripening among green leaves,
childhoodlike as a medieval codex; storks, magpies,
yoked oxen; sentry boxes; roadside memorial wreaths
that fade and gather dust encased in plastic;
the ineradicable red of poppies, flimsy-petaled,
hardier than any culture, emblazoning the fields
of wheat and barley: proof of labor with the mattock,
of women hoeing in the fields all morning,
with respite under poplar trees at noon, the labor
