Crossing

The border between Hungary and Romania,
travelling and destination, outside and in,
was a sword swallowing act.
He was a small man on a tall stool
with feathered wings tattooed on his back.
He crowed a spiel about putting money in his hat,
shocking the more sensitive children in the audience:
If a man can swallow the blade of a sword,
should we not fête him, pay all his bills?

First you must overcome the gag reflex.
You must learn to breathe in without breathing out.
Line up the muscles of your gut,
make of your mouth a gin trap.
The thing slides in quite slowly,
take it to the hilt.
Your throat becomes the rut for the runners of a sleigh,
your tonsils lean to lick at it,
the metal of your fillings sings,
your tongue tastes the cold, a long, cold drink.
Fillings singing like blades in a drawer, the train entering a tunnel,
things that go where they belong, belong where they are,
a carp’s scale in a shepherd’s purse,
the sword is gone.

Children wonder at the trick.
They wonder that an adult hasn’t clapped hands over their eyes,
murmured little pitchers, sent them to bed.
They wonder at the man passing round a hat, what it will take
to make their lives heroic.
The border police came and went.
The train was like the Orient Express
and we shared our compartment with a Romanian
who was coming home from a student union meeting in Prague.

Hoolies: Knees up.