What the Waiter Gave Me What the waiter gave me was never
*****what I had ordered,
yet I grasped his language
*****imperfectly, knew the country
too little or too well to complain. Instead I watched
*****the veterans, arranged like ancient
chessmen under linden trees. They savoured
*****that brash scent,
nodded sightless to the ocean’s funeral
*****jazz, black eyes behind black
glass. Limbless, partially
*****limbed. Cognac bloomed
on my tongue, lit my blood with the grim
*****aria of this age’s end—
an enervated gasp of belief,
*****or unbelief. Bandsmen were murdering
final anthems, our cuckolded statesmen
*****at last anathema to the thugish mass.
Then evening slowly spun a slick of cream
*****into my coffee, tainted the sea with saffron,
*************************lead.
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