how about that time, that other place
a time we didn't know
a time in which we wasted time we didn't have
on streets not yet invented
or named
after state leaders that had yet to die
that city, a book
see it while away on yellowing paper
untrained in the art of flaunting it's pages
to the flirtacious eyes of a reader
desperate
to be persuaded into an affair
the libraries go hungry
the same libraries
we trained in verse
they lend their arms to the sick
and desireless
against an annuity
consisting only of parts of their non-longing
lions without lion tamers
and no knowledge
of how to go wild
jennie, the vanishing elephant
resurfaces at the far end of sonnenallee
replacing a gasping audience in the hippodrome
with a complacent pack of eurotravelers
outside the estrel hotel
grasping a disparate selection of german beers
with one hand
and applying the second for applause
the diary entries from that day all read:
«dear diary, we won»
