BERLIN

 

Berlin in winter

Where the breaths are drawn like dragons

Iron radiators that churn and drip

The little apartment rejoices in it’s drabness with a bare red light bulb

Plugged in along the floor to welcome them home

With the rain out side

Windows like a railway carriage line up along each wall

It must glorious in the summer to lie face down against the tiles in 

The bathroom and wait for dusk

They talk about the evening just had

The smoke and laughter that never seems hard enough

Red lipstick and dancing blisters still pounding in their ears

Thoughts tinkling like the good crystal glasses that no one they know uses any more

Things disappear and they make do

Almost better than before

Everyone makes love before the war

In those moments you are anywhere           

Everywhere and no where. A place where things are born

In a hide out belonging to an ancient hymn sung out in ecstasy

Retracing her steps as he warms his feet between her thighs

These thighs she gives to him but her thoughts are her own

The make love twice because nothing is for certain

Gasps stolen from the bell tower

Forge us on

In life

In love

In Berlin before the war