Why do I teach my daughter to type?
Like there’s no tomorrow. Magic leaden
characters striking the papery
cumulative.

I dunno, because

it’s one of the few things in the world
I know how to do
has served me well
made me fluent it has made me
money it has given me words to speak, with which
to hear the best
translation available

Because it’s outlaw
and I’m an outlaw

I accept Death
I accept Skills, measurement
in length and width

most importantly Death.

I am unlikely to meet my Maker
here in the Copenhagen airport, I make my
connection. Statistics
do not lie: safer to fly than to drive; upon arrival find the Jews
not “decimated,” that is
understatement, but “liquidated”; panoramic views
of orange tiled rooftops raise spirits
precisely 2 to 1;
you cannot just stick a writer in a room

in Vilnius
and tell her to write—this is

Death Vilnius, long
white room’s iniquity
damaged collaterally
hysterically confirmed
genocide, occupation in an almost Western-seeming
context. Superficially so. Bio groceries and
foul local honey—medicinal—bees hung over vodka—and
bath salts, baby, bath salts. Baby

needs collegial

action, assurance of mealtime. This is why colonies

form out of despair. I came here
to this white renovation

to be alone with my lost lover, to sink into the nowhere no one will go with me, I go
everywhere I go so I can be alone
with him. I meet him there. No one will laugh at me

here I think or will they, I brought my own
spirits, maybe
they are laughing even now. They cannot contain long

suppressed amusement, plain
language in white paint on dark impressive statuary in a small park occupied time
and time again, virtually comical—slapstick of occupation—bang on the head when
it raises
its head, if you like that sort of thing; virtually abstract
public art—long obsidian sisters

in public space depose the heavy heart, the head-and-shoulders
of Stalin and his brethren now disposed to lie
in rubble in the garbage.
Can.
of History. That word
should be abolished. Nothing dies. “Love Lust Faith

Dreams”—it is of legend. Why

do I teach my daughter to type?
Like there’s no tomorrow.