Knight's Valentine

There’s that unaccountability
in all human communication
and some clear authority besides
but did you say knight
without amour or knight
without armour
people laying down
on the tracks to stop the trains
during the revolution in Russia
people hanging from the boxcars
struggling to escape
show me your hands
the hands of a woman
who never worked
a day in her life
a countess imagine
people being pushed
this way and that
we’ve all been through
a great strain a younger man
who loves you kills himself
to distract the guards
so you can escape
only to fall immediately
into the hands of the
local police and
then you phoned
the footage regressing
to silent Marlene I was
listening to you it was
1938 our lives weren’t
watching us and we were
hardly even getting ready
to be born.