Natives,
Slavs, dark Irish, moan
for
elsewhere, sigh like an accordion―
they hover
with snake eyes,
offer
melancholy and vodka.
Smoke
rises from their pipes,
twists the
many places before
with all
the next stations―
part boxcar, part gypsy wagon.
They swaddle
in babushka, braid bone
in my
hair, rock me in peat and hay,
croon lullabies
of painted roses.
I am colicky―sleep takes a long time.
I dream of
conjurers, hypnotists
whispering
a distant star―
a scent of
madness and resin candles,
the raven-smooth face of the Black Madonna.
the raven-smooth face of the Black Madonna.
*The Sleeping Gypsy, 1897, by Henri Rousseau
