A hotel in whose ledgers departures are more prominent than arrivals. <br />With wet Koh-i-noors the October rain <br />strokes what's left of the naked brain. <br />In this country laid flat for the sake of rivers, <br />beer smells of Germany and the seaguls are <br />in the air like a page's soiled corners. <br />Morning enters the premises with a coroner's <br />punctuality, puts its ear <br />to the ribs of a cold radiator, detects sub-zero: <br />the afterlife has to start somewhere. <br />Correspondingly, the angelic curls <br />grow more blond, the skin gains its distant, lordly <br />white, while the bedding already coils <br />desperately in the basement laundry.<br /><br />Joseph Brodsky<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/dutch-mistress/
