Užupis

Passing an accordion player in the street,
I mark a building with names and dates
carved into the fitted blocks of a wall

whose former basement prison is open
to visitors. In the adjacent park,
two women greet each other and hug.

The smoke of the past seeps into my clothes;
when an invisible cloud of radioactive dust
settled on spruce and birch forests,

foragers picked and dined on mushrooms
only to wake, convulse, die.
As I walk over a bridge, spot

empty picture frames dangling below,
a bench swing suspended over rushing water,
I wonder, what is the swing of destiny?

In this city armies have marched through,
from the east, from the west, from the east,
I sip a salty mineral water laced

with calcium, magnesium, sulfates,
while others fill bottles, chug.
Standing in a district that declares itself

a republic inside a city, whose last article
of Dada constitution says, Do not surrender,
I swing out of myself on invisible wings.