/the last evening/
r.m.rilke

And night and distant rumbling;
now the army's carrier train was moving out, to war.
He looked up from the harpsichord,
and as he went on playing he looked across at her
almost as one might gaze into a mirror:
so deeply was her every feature filled
with his young features, which bore his pain,
and were more beautiful and seductive with each sound.

Then, suddenly, the image broke apart.
She stood, as though distracted, near the window
and felt the violent drum-beats of her heart.
His playing stopped. From outside, a fresh wind blew.
And strangely alien on the mirror-table
stood the black shako with its ivory skull.

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(c)pillbox, 1996