Finding Kafka at Café Kaaba

                               for Lizzy Lesquesne

I sit at the last tiny table
in a room clattery and close,
ribboned with smoke and language.

Pressed against the window, tourists
lost between Tynska and Jakubska,
gesticulate. Umbrellas blossom
against a cobblestone sky. Sipping

espresso, I sketch a man reading
the paper, a waiter smiling prosim,
two girls whispering over cappuccinos.

I spend a long time on the couple
in the back corner – woman leaning away,
man clutching her hand.

Then, looking at my reflection
in the window, I draw my own
face – serene now – though I remember
other cafes – in Berlin, in Vienna,

yes, even here, with a lover
holding my hand across the table.
Long gone lover.
Then through my reflected face,

I see a poster across the street.
Kafka, who sat in cafes
like this one – Imperial, Slavia,
U Flecku. Kafka who failed

at love. Kafka smirking at me now.
You’re not so tough, he says, and
winks. Yes, I think he does

and I can’t say if it’s the wink, or the sudden
change in light, but I erase the little man
in the corner still clutching his lover

and give him Franz Kafka’s face and body.
I make him much too small
for his voluptuous companion, much too
damaged for love. I erase all

the faces I’ve drawn – even
my own and sketch the same deep
eyes, dark hair, hollow cheeks – again
and again – until Cafe Kaaba is full

of Kafkas and the moment stretches
and stills like the scene in a  film
when the protagonist’s pain or joy
or exquisite awareness

stuns even the cameraperson
and the room’s slo-mo blur
becomes a metaphor
for epiphany. And I go out

to ride from Karlovy Most
to Kamenicka, as Prague
passes through my face
in the tram window,

my sketchbook full of Kafkas,
his voice not moaning
(no more moaning)
but laughing in my ear.