Adrian LeCesne. Negotiatio ns Meg Pross nitz. Erno. 28.

Negotiations

Adrian LeCesne P encil /Digiral Imaging

Erno

Meg Prossnitz

He always read at breakfast Although he disliked reading at the dinner table. Every morning he brought my grandmother a cup of tea, And she remembers him for this. He called her Mullie, Her white horse Mulatchka.

I remember him like stone, imposing and grand Cool faced marble, Smooth, silent.

I ache to understand his childhood, His secrets of Bratislava, Vhat it was like watching black bunting Draped over streer lamps.

My mother whines, Saying he blocked our his dead brother A pang he hid his whole life. I say he concealed it well Vith African dreams

Sleeping in tents Vatching tigers under a silver lit moon Being showered with flowers. Africa dulled the pain for him Of racing from Czechoslovakia to England Vithout morher or father.

Eighty-seven pained years hiding beneath A wrinkle-free face Now gone,

No lesson learned Only in black and white, a photograph Of a man, Necklaced in flowers Beside a dead tiger.