(in memoriam Keith Douglas, 1920-1944)
How to find his way in
was not the thing he was afraid of
nor the quandary now of getting back out.
Dust drifted like a layer
of Parisian café foam
from the third story windows to the roof.
Glancing up from the alleymouth
gave him no compass, no sense
whether staying put or hurrying along
was his better-or-best
next pawn’s move.
The three bodies he had passed on his way
into darkness were strewn
the rise of the Norman stairs,
fallen ragdolls in nevertheless tidy order.
He had stalked past the
chronology of that quick triple-
kill, taking from it those details he could use.
The first to fall bore no marks
at all, though turning the body over
might show ruin’s realm clear enough.
The others were torn wide open
and continued to leak out
what little was left onto the slippery stairs.
The sound around him and
behind him was the same No-Sound
that had swallowed the outskirts two hours before first light.
A cat’s tinkle through bottle
glass, his own breathing, a sheet
flapping somewhere up in all that dust.
And the sea breaking in his head
as though it belonged there.
He braced himself for the noise of another something
human, counting down the
languages to expect, flexing, tensing,
shifting from eyes-wide sleep to skin on fire,
strung to hear and relax
at a Home Counties’ regimental curse,
hear and strike if the voice sang east-of-Rhine.