Crime et Punition

A mud-grey car dove into the river.
I stand on the banks, examining her I.O.U:
“Regarde-nous bien!" Over
my head, clouds gather under heaven. The once blue

horizon bloats with rain. Thunder
is the empty boast of a Godless sky, I know. What use are suits of armor
in a storm? They are impractical, rusting under
the water’s constant drip, water that makes it feasible for farmers

to harvest Jeanne Moreaus draped in curtains.
These Jeannes pout and pose; their noise
overlooked in Ovid’s translation
of Nature into Man. Nature feeds this haze

and my view of the horizon is fading fast.
But look, in the distance one can almost make out the graves
of Jules and Jim. They were friends, now lost,
who sank together in the Tomis mire that sullied Ovid’s

legacy. Drowned in muck, the car is gone. On the shore
I’ve ceased to breathe, and suddenly,
aimlessly, my knees sink into the river bank. I’ve become the sun-glare
of this world’s supposed constancy.