box of jars

daniel kraines
En Hofgarten
I waited for you, my head on a platter,
Eyes blinking: person after person passed, each had hair 

Cut at their ears, Eastern sleeves, lines
For eyebrows, cigarette talons, a backless shirt—echoes 

Of you, they whispered Ja Ja Ja, 
But after we talked, an obsidian block, Nein Nein Nein.

Vines cut into the wood of the gazebo.
Rhododendron fell onto the gravel roads of the pavilion.