Belfast Tune

Portrait of Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky 1940–1996

Here's a girl from a dangerous town She crops her dark hair short so that less of her has to frown when someine gets hurt.

She folds her memories like a parachute. Dropped, she collects the peat and cooks her veggies at home: they shoot here where they eat.

Ah, there's more sky in these parts than, say, ground. Hence her voice's pitch, and her stare stains your retina like a gray bulb when you switch

hemispheres, and her knee-length quilt skirt's cut to catch the squal, I dream of her either loved or killed because the town's too small.

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