The Return


Kafka, though correct
that the odds were impossible
against the imperial messenger crossing
the crowded width of the Palace, that
of the capital, and the vast (endless)
realm – a stylized China
or world in which there is no hope or, really,
interest – was wrong
to think he wouldn’t.  He delivers the message
to the least of the Emperor’s subjects,
and returns with a reply.
At a table at the remotest
of the Palace’s checkpoints, he catches his breath,
drinks water.  The checkpoint is now underground,
like all the approaches to the Palace
(and the Palace itself?).  But the soldiers,
fanatical, desperate, pale,
though they complain of the bad air
and light, seem unaware
of constraint and the absence of sun.
On their flickering and obsolete
monitors, they saw the messenger
coming a long way;
to them he is a legendary figure.
He finds their ritual praise of the Emperor
(which he seconds, curtly flattering them
in return) familiar
yet somehow fraught, abstract;
their rumors of war (there is always a war) insubstantial.
When they ask *him for news, he says
he has none, having concentrated
only upon his journey and the message.
(About which, he replies
firmly to their anxious wheedling,
he of course can say nothing.)
Then he rises, refreshed, and they see,
as he enters the tunnels they cannot
perceive as tunnels or as ruinous,
him change into a girl
like the one who, after thirty years,
may “stumble across you” on Google
and email, once.
(But the uniform, black, with a star,
does not change, nor the fleetness;
and the soldiers, deep underground,
are used to hallucinations and miracles.)
As she runs, she too
becomes less clear
as to whether this troglodyte realm
is not a surface, or the surface; whether
the objects swiftly passing
in half-remembered rooms,
now crowded only with soldiers, are still gold.
The Emperor, dying when last seen,
is still dying but moving
heavily about.  She kneels before him.
He gazes at her a long time,
perhaps moved, or attracted
in a valedictory way
(it is the star upon her breast that counts).
Bids her rise,
receives from her the message
from the least of his subjects; ponders, says
“I don’t remember what I said or asked
so long ago.  The response is meaningless” –
and, faintly moved by his faint petulance,
she almost wishes to apologize.
With rusty politeness, then, he says, “Come.  Drink
and eat.  You have seen the breadth
of my kingdom.  You can tell me
better than any spy or news report
how it goes.  Whether I am loved.
Somewhere out there you may have met
Will, who could belch whole sentences;
Tom, with his futile brilliance;
Laura, as sensual as yourself –
so many friends already safe in death.”