PROVENCE 1967
Outside the youth hostel
it is raining
art rises
in the underground
and I’m talking
to Miklos from Pest
about Atilla Jozsef
and Radnoti,
he has the tentative look
of Klee’s angel
who lives in the left arm
of the riverbed sea
waiting for a bar
to open
we speak of “Breathless”
and the new wave
he is restless for women
not to behave,
offers me piled records
one of a Piaf
life abstracted
in an alienated laugh,
life awakens
he says,
only in a kiss,
forgiving myself
as I trade him
my German copy
of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”.