WEBVTT

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This poem's weird.

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It's from a period when I was
reading about one of the wars

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during the 16th century, I
think, in Germany or something.

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And then I just wrote
it, but I don't--

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somebody took it for
a magazine, but I

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don't understand why
because I really revised

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it and it had all
these faults in it.

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And it probably still does,
but I'll read it anyway.

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You've always got to
have some fillers.

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[LAUGHS] You do.

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It matters somehow and
somehow it doesn't.

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It's called "The Deserter."

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"Through the hole
in the hut's wall,

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I watched the old
woman who put me up

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leaning against a wooden tub,
elbow deep in wash water.

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At my feet, the red
coat stained red black

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from the burning
of the last village

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gives off the smell
of leather rubbed

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with spices and pieces
of charred wood.

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I go to her, feeling an itch
somewhere inside my mouth,

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knowing I've got to leave
everything of myself here.

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I raise the rifle as she
presses a white shawl far down

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in the water and fire.

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She dies quietly, even
her heart spits blood

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through clenched teeth.

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And take bread onions
radishes and set out,

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leaving the rifle behind
while the wind is down.

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And stillness, with its
knives of powdered lead,

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slashes the coarse
brown hair from my arms

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as I hold them
empty at my sides."

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