The Munich Mannequins

 

Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.

Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb

 

Where the yew trees blow like hydras,

The tree of life and the tree of life

 

Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose.

The blood flood is the flood of love,

 

The absolute sacrifice.

It means: no more idols but me,

 

Me and you.

So, in their sulfur loveliness, in their smiles

 

These mannequins lean tonight

In Munich, morgue between Paris and Rome,

 

Naked and bald in their furs,

Orange lollies on silver sticks,

 

Intolerable, without mind.

The snow drops its pieces of darkness,

 

Nobody's about. In the hotels

Hands will be opening doors and setting

 

Down shoes for a polish of carbon

Into which broad toes will go tomorrow.

 

O the domesticity of these windows,

The baby lace, the green-leaved confectionery,

 

The thick Germans slumbering in their bottomless Stolz.

And the black phones on hooks

 

Glittering

Glittering and digesting

 

Voicelessness. The snow has no voice.