I was naïve of foreign affairs in the Four
Seasons bar when a Swiss knife maker 
assured me of the coming war. I ignored, 
 
the night of invasion, the accidental celebration 
of a bottle of wine opened in spite of everything. 
Four years later my radio wakes to a string 
 
of explosions unreadable as fever or a blush 
to lips pressed to the brow, indistinguishable 
as our ones from one hundreds to the discerning 
 
fingers of the blind. Sleep heavy as a child’s 
has impressed the red shape of my right hand 
on my chest. In my university town, steel I-beams 
 
rise out of the perfected pit of a new foundation, 
a new addition to Physics. From down the street, 
the welder’s torch looks like a fallen star.