While at coffee in the Marienplatz you say
that possessions, like regrets, are ridiculous:
in the square I see them swarm like starlings,
exclamation marks without a sentence.
You say it is only logical then
that there is no such thing as theft:
I see the star boats return with slack nets.
You point out a Louis Vuitton bag
slouched sideways on the next table:
the old collaborator launched lawyers
at those who copied his design,
though even this Bavarian sky
is a forgery from the east.
You say there was a time when you would
have taken that bag and dumped it,
maybe at an op shop, just to show them.
At the Museum of Hunting the stairwells
are studded with antlers and heads, the floors
patrolled by brown bears, wolves and a lynx,
their Waldgeist stolen by some taxidermist.
That night we rock the lacy bed
with ferocious intent and Frau Mettler,
morning in her hair, shakes a fat finger at
our blue-eyed impertinence
but gives us gingerbread when we leave.
I don’t think I will ever learn from all this,
except that infatuation is another kind of stealing.
Which is why, long after Munich
I keep a black elastic hair band in my sock drawer.
After all, when lovers leave it seems unnatural,
like the stuttering dolls of the Glockenspiel,
or the trucks with cranes that arrive at dusk
to remove tubs brimming with red and yellow.
It keeps them from the quick fingers
of Jugendliche, the flower thieves,
night pilots who have no regrets.