Swans

There are paddle boats the shape of swans on the Vltava. Sheet lightning flashes above the castle. I found a building with my best friend's name on it, an owl in gold and green.



"What is his name? What is his name?" the shadow asked as I crossed the street to his side, dimmed by eerie trees. I lit a cigarette for protection. I'm tough; I could poke your eye out with this. He bent me over in a bathroom stall. "You came here for this, but what is his name?" Who knows.



I'm impaled on the city of 100 spires. Riding the tram in the mornings around the castle compound. Having fairy-tale fantasies: I want to put my bare ass on every holy structure I see. I've fallen through some trap door. I don't care what happens to me here. O compared herself to Alice. I'm neither one; just me.



I fold inward with loneliness, and then change color and shape as if tumbled through a kaleidoscope. Every time I'm turned by art, the crowd, the sights, your hand, I break down into fractals, brilliant and sharp.



My time's almost up. Someone extends a háček from stage right, and slips it around my neck, pulling me away. I'll wear it on the journey home, under my shirt like a hidden passport.

**

Thanks to Kate, who read this in early June and didn't advise the journalist to stick with her day-job writing. Well, she didn't advise me to share it either, but I wanted to now.

The weirdest thing is, I'd had the lines about the spooky street and predatory sex in my head for weeks, and then on one of my last nights in Prague, I actually witnessed some misbehavior on that street. I heard a hiss, then turned to see a man not six feet away jerking it beside a tree. He said obviously solicitous things to me in Czech, and I felt a rush of adrenaline, but the surprising thing was the sound that came out of my mouth: "Ahh!" Like finding a spider in the sink. I did it twice. He mocked me and I kept walking at the same pace, correct that he was a harmless perv. But worried that I had created a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts...