take a fly rod from
his shed and put it in my car.
He said "I saw you steal
my trout rod," which meant
"[ haven't died." So I
returned it. Seeing him
die was like seeing a boy
inflate a sandwich bag
with breath, then empty it.
His flesh that had been
flesh, then Elm, was Ash.
I stayed a week, and
when he wasn't dying
anymore, I went away.
CHRISTIAN NAGLE
Lament for Attila the
Hun
In all, yours must have been trump card years.
Roaring off key in some gutted town, you'd gut
any soldier forgetting how to eat without a knife.
For twenty years ftom the Caspian to the Rhine!
Cartographers only pencilled in Pannonia's borders,
carefully mixed your outlands into neighbors' yards.
Nights your armies kipped, through shaggy clouds
the Little Bear found you picking scabs at a sentry fire,
stick-drawing new victories with the watchmen.
Sparing virgins at your tent, you'd consider your naked
ring-finger: Constantinople, a wife. Could formality-
the prospect of regular beds and baths-cool your sword,
