P R O V E N A N C E

By Andrea Berger

What a book thinks it knows about you
not a function of the body, but
a part of it at least--bones always
these things get lost
in the farmhouse before dawn
you distract your mother
as the wild, local boy crawls
out the back door the black door
and it's dawn, he's so gone
you're not sure he was ever there
you might have dreamt of doing
in your usually stingy dreams
the romantic fact
of not being certain

  a movie, though it’s bad
contains a potent scene
blue at night the prisoner
sneaks out of the work camp
and breaks into St. Someone’s
where private school girls
are all snoring--and he enters
the room of the beloved
blonde
settles over her on the bed
like one more blanket of sleep
the sheet between them--but
hotter for it--and though it
seems he’s been gone minutes
it’s a dangerous dawn as he leaves