about nora

say she’s jerusalem say she’s mecca i say she’s a damsel stays in a castle room near antwerp say i’m given leave from evenings and the nights of the week the books i read and the paper on which i write from the mornings and the weekday afternoons the lectures and the lectern at which i stand i say i haven’t yet asked for sabbatical from the faculty of divinity say it’s you i appoint to read the dogma write the sermons and on the sunday mornings ascend the pulpit at st mary’s and preach before i give you time from your study of theology i’d rather i go on that pilgrimage

an envelope a body made of paper i’ll bet that you’d stake a daydream an i can’t think of anything but you written rhymed on a sheet of paper soul i’ll raise that you’d slide that soul into a body seal it closed two years friedrich says every day or two or three he’d take an emotional envelope from your hand at the university carry secrets known to all the town to an address in the market square knock and when the door’d open he’d put the expressionless envelope in the wash wrinkled hand of the servant and wait

i’ll double down that the servant’d file your poker faced envelope into one of nora’s hands and take from her other hand the writing and the rhymes sealed in the paper substitute for her body and return embarrassments for your old age that a hagged nora will keep stored in a keepsake drawer folded friedrich says he’s frequently carried nora’s true soul from the market square back to your hand at the university i’ll push a further five florins in that you’d study it

you’d remember aaron he sits in that booth at the end of the bridge over the elbe watches the shadowed side of the booth become sunlit no rather he watches the sunlit side of the booth become shadowed that booth is windowed toward dawn i should ask how often you’d paid the toll

adolf’d tell me even the prettiest village girl’d see how nora’s hand in yours was nora’s hand in brandenberg were nora’s fingers intertwined with your inheritance with your titles with your family’s coat of arms even the prettiest girl’d know her peasant hand’d never be held by a hand like yours

where horst’s hands swollen by his grip on the axe handle his fingers plumped the skin on the back of his hands made dry hide by weather there where his palms calloused and scarred have never taken a complexion of porcelain between them would never hold a face made alabaster with a primer of eggwhite and a foundation of lead with cheeks pinked and lips made scarlet with crushed berries there in that place you might have reminded yourself your taking of nora’s face between your hands was unwelcome