Over the muzzles of horses, & the quickness of horses.

And if the boy has forgiven them in advance

By such a slight gesture, this turning of his head,

It is because he knows, as they do, too,

Not only that terror is a state

Of complete understanding, but also that

In a few years, this whole village, with its cockeyed

Shacks, tea leaves, promiscuity between cousins,

Idle horse thieves, & pale lilacs used

To cure the insane,

Will be gone—bulldozed away so that the land

Will lie black & fallow & without history.

And nothing will be planted there, or buried,

As the same flocks of sparrows

Will go on gathering, each spring, in the high dark

Of these trees.

Still, it is impossible not to see

That the young man has washed & combed his hair

For this last day on earth; it is impossible

Not to see how one of the policemen has turned back

To the crowd as if to prevent

Any mother or sister from rushing forward—

Although neither one, if she is here, seems

About to move. And in the background,

You can see that a few of the houses are entirely white,

Like a snowfall persisting into spring,

Or into oblivion, though this

May be the fault of the photograph or its development

Under such circumstances….

And now even the children in the crowd, who have gathered

To watch all this, appear to be growing bored

With the procedures & the waiting.

I suppose that the young man's face,

Without looking up, spoke silently to Koudelka as he passed,

Just as it speaks now, to me, from this photograph.

Now that there is nothing either of us can do for him.

His hair is clean & washed, & his coat is buttoned.

Except for his handcuffs, he looks as if

He is beginning a long journey, or going out,

For the first time into the world….

He must have thought he could get away with this,

Or else he must have thought he loved her.

It is too late to inquire.

It is mid-afternoon & twenty years too late,

And even the language he used to explain it all

Is dying a little more, each moment, as I write this—

And as I begin to realize that

This ancient, still blossoming English

Will also begin to die, someday, to crack & collapse

Under its own weight—

Though that will not happen for years & years,

And long after the barber & the clerk

Have lowered their rifles & turned away to vomit

For what seems like a long time, & then,

Because there is nothing else for them to do,

They will walk home together, talking softly in a language

That has never been written down.

If you look closely at the two of them

Sweating in their black wool suits,

You can see how even their daily behavior,

The way they avoid the subject,

Has become an art:

One talks of his daughter, who is learning to dance.