Two Poems by Dan Kraines

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ZERMATT

Alles in der Welt läßt sich ertragen, 
nur nicht eine Reihe von schönen. Anything
in the world is endurable except a series of clear days.
Green blue gush of the river through the center
of town: village of cabins, modern, scattered
in the valley of the Matterhorn. Easy 
to imagine a night of hushed Swiss-

German, dark absorbing the Alps:
when you move, the snow moves, the avalanche
buries you. To you, the snow is a metaphor
for sex. On the guardrail, a small black bird
perches, puffing out its chest, staring 
into the pines. Little oxygen 
on the staircase to your new cabin—

a glass of fresh tap water 
for mountain sickness. You see couples 
lining up alongside the river, posing.
But you take pictures from the back porch
entering the circle of rock that grew
from the bottom of the ocean,
capped by glacial ice.

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BREWERY OVERLOOKING THE GENESEE RIVER

Finally, the winter subsides and the river melts
or, almost—snowing in April,
I could always drug myself, I know 
that would make the weeks a drift, 
instead of swaying between Mars and the moon,
days waiting for the end of days, mornings
spent in bed—the drill 
of the depressive who hates the sun
(but needs its light). Am I the billiard ball
spinning without contact straight
sunk into a pocket? The whole bar 
quiets. Pinned inside of a booth, 
against the wall, I’m screaming 
within myself, the snow
falling, thickly, whitening as it melts.

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