(Remembering Paris, 2005)
1.
After a crow flies from my window,
After I close behind me the gate of a book,
After I pick up a trash bag, and open the door of my room,
Ready for lunch and a stroll in the Jardin du Luxembourg,
I see a hunched man and a woman, framed within it, as if in a painting.
We’ll take your trash bag out.
But I am going out!
No, you stay in, Mademoiselle.
They close the door for me, just as I notice a flock
Of harried figures at the end of the corridor.
I retreat deep into the shell of the room,
Borrowed like my life from the library of time,
Expiration date stamped on me with invisible ink.
I open the window wide
But the sky is translucent cinderblocks.
The cyclops’ eye watches me from behind the clouds.
I stare at the sink anchored to the wall,
A shelf around the bed, a chair, a desk,
And I think of a way out.
2.
Two hours after a crow flies from my window,
Starving, I draw a plate and silverware in the air
And suddenly hear a knock at the door.
A friend of mine stops by to tell me that last night,
A fellow student committed suicide.
Later, a towel in my hand, I tiptoe into the bathroom,
And turn my eyes away from the first stall,
Which used to be mine, fearing I will see
A cello hanging,
A swan hanging,
A unicorn hanging by a belt,
Antigone hanging by her linen veil,
A boy hanging shrouded in the air.
Each shower stall, a coffin standing on end.
The light in the stall I always used,
Just by the door, was on, the night before
And I had to shower elsewhere.
Was Charon ferrying him across the Styx
Or was he was still breathing when life rained on me?
Since then, whenever I see a crow alight on the ground
I remember that Death never turns off the light.
Agnieszka Tworek was born in Lublin, Poland. She was educated at the University of Chicago (B.A.), Yale University (Ph.D.), and at the Université Paris Nanterre. She was also a pensionnaire étrangère at the École normale supérieure in Paris. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Rattle (Poets Respond), The Shore, Anthropocene, ONE ART, Lake Effect, and in other journals.