A Novelist's Eye

The way Belgium has peeled from the map
convinces me you have powers.

All those Brueghels in limbo--
could Paris, seat of abstractions,

be next? The slick of your eye
and trembling of your mouth suggest

emotions you'd rather not feel.
There goes Luxembourg, easy prey.

The cathedral once impressed me,
and the clean streets. But you,

with a novelist's eye for detail,
have censored the wine shops, felled

trees that remember the last world war.
The map's lacy and webbed. The cries

of orphans tinkle like scrap.
Am I next? You open room

after room to reveal the cruelest
scenarios, some pornographic,

and I have nowhere to run because
you've stripped all Europe to expose

the embarrassing lack of bedrock
lying beneath a culture we've loved.