Lost in the Woods

Treeline - pastel by Karin Goeppert

MÄRCHEN

Something’s seeping through the cell’s wall.

Perhaps a minor disturbance

an interior monologue

going on a little too loudly, a touch too long,   

something blooming in a syringe maybe

becoming an object of study, or an x-ray of your system

invaded by extraterrestrials.

And all you want, all you need

actually, and as soon as possible, is a drink—     

but it has to be in the right neighborhood—

a hut, say, on top of a 

mountain near Munich

where you order a tall cold beer

from a short warm woman, put your feet up on a chair 

with hearts carved into its hard wood—and sigh—

and wonder where your shoes went, and how the grass

got so green, and how good it feels on bare feet the grass  

lifting you even as you flatten the prickly green blades,

wonder if this young, somewhat overweight waitress

dressed in a Dirndl (a word with a vowel

missing in action, mutely crying for help in a dark German wood),

knows where you are going, and how you will get there.

Siegried's Funeral March by Richard Wagner
The Symphony Orchestra of the LISZT SCHOOL of Music Weimar

conducted by Marek Janowski