Prague Letter

We are here on embassy.
Fair Helen or Eleanor
'You can translate it how you wish,'
greets us downstairs from the Ministry of Culture
attendant spirit in this masque of winter
gives us our crowns to spend
and our programme, strides a lithe Artemis
in her blue autumn coat, booty of an old trip
to Peter Jones, out into the dazed morning.
We are in Bohemia.

*

You were hard to come at: the airport
socked in with fog sent us south to Budapest.
Below on the tarmac the bowser driver
gobs broad Magyar faced at the plane wheel
before coupling up. A boy moustached
operetta handsome in sludge green
...