The Assassin Comes: Fourth German Spy

 

 

 

The Folly

The German Spy

 

 

---

 

 

The Assassin Comes

 

It amounts to when

No sacrifice without advantage

(mein Herr) as to chessmen

But players on the scene bump in

 

In her room, Krug diligent and dozy

…not allowing sleep

Lies still and lets the streetlamp

Inform him of her corners

Jewellery chest three dressing table drawers

The fourth is simply missing for a jest

He stares tries to fathom a map of this

When she snores

He creeps, and naked pads to feel behind the glass

All her things found in the pages of a bible

Many photographs of many men and third class menus

A lock of hair

A thin, thin chain of brass

Envy he feels most

Welling through a crust of abandonment

and helpless anger

An embarrassment of other selves

This woman Agnes sheltered under

She has pretended nothing

She and Atherleigh laughing

Their bitter gay insouciance of modern thought

To die with a brilliant flash as the setting sun

Teeth like a stream of mackerel clouds

Bared in a nihilistic grin

A boy in boarding school stowed

who may reared empty thus become

Another such as the whistling falcon

Stooping on

Atherleigh dead for the second time

His body arranged as a warning sign

The assassin comes

 

 

 

---

The Assassin Comes

A Chain

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2018, Stephanie Foster)