Dutch Mistress

Portrait of Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky 1940–1996

A hotel in whose ledgers departures are more prominent than arrivals. With wet Koh-i-noors the October rain strokes what's left of the naked brain. In this country laid flat for the sake of rivers, beer smells of Germany and the seaguls are in the air like a page's soiled corners. Morning enters the premises with a coroner's punctuality, puts its ear to the ribs of a cold radiator, detects sub-zero: the afterlife has to start somewhere. Correspondingly, the angelic curls grow more blond, the skin gains its distant, lordly white, while the bedding already coils desperately in the basement laundry.

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