I kissed men and women
drank absinthe and Slivovitz
until my tongue grew numb
smoked Czech cigarettes
until I wheezed, gave them up
for whatever the man I was seeing
smoked, Davidoffs I think
jogged through a monastery
wearing just a bra and shorts
gazed at the ground
whenever I passed a monk

(I am still sorry)

took Vicodin for a headache
drank tea with forest fruit on the bottom
each bite a discovery like the first time
I tasted black currant and then
danced my way down the Golden Lane
cobblestones swimming beneath me.

Why did I swim naked in the Vltava
its dark water tinged with the blood
of Saint John Nepomuk
whom King Wenceslas IV threw
from the Charles Bridge?

Why did I sleep with a man twice my age?
I wanted to hear his stories about war.
This was my grandfather’s homeland.
They’d killed his sister already, and his niece
and were going to kill him, too,

the night he fled, just before
the skeleton rang its hourly death knell.