Dutch Mistress

A hotel in whose ledgers departures are more prominent than arrivals.

With wet Koh-i-noors the October rain

strokes what's left of the naked brain.

In this country laid flat for the sake of rivers,

beer smells of Germany and the seaguls are

in the air like a page's soiled corners.

Morning enters the premises with a coroner's

punctuality, puts its ear

to the ribs of a cold radiator, detects sub-zero:

the afterlife has to start somewhere.

Correspondingly, the angelic curls

grow more blond, the skin gains its distant, lordly

white, while the bedding already coils

desperately in the basement laundry.