by Kelly Norah Drukker

Breaking into Amsterdam was not easy.  I walked
the cracked streets, past black canals
and the wasted men who watched me, glue-dumb,
with stones for eyes.

In the chill of Dam Square, where the statues found
sunlight, I scraped for peanut husks and shells
with the drowsy pigeons.  Cranes stared down
from the tops of buildings.  At home

               in the blank town, the windmills scared me,
with their wings like ravens
crashing up and down,     ravens
trapped       that almost hit
the ground to rest, then burst
up into flight.  When Jannik
                                                   on his bike came I really flew

i am a wire doll, bright & feverish       with
             men and boys with light mosquito eyes that nervous
cling to my window, past the narrow whining staircases of
the
       ²Oudezijdes Voorburgwal
taverns in sunlight,       doors thrown
               open                                                 wide
with
                                            the milk of          boys
in my ears, hands, thighs
                                                 and soursweet breath
in the room, near
                             Dawn,
and the smoke in the quiet lanes
the cranes from rooftops dive, float
                                                                     for me

1. “Unclean woman”—Amsterdam slang for prostitute
2. “Old side of the city wall”—Street in Amsterdam’s red-light district

Source: Headlight Anthology, no. 1, 1998, p. 15.