The Baths of Budapest
by
Jake Sheff
The Buda hills are
happily depressed
above the Danube,
as the Danube
wags along beneath
Margaret Bridge
like a cautionary
tale. The Danube
censures
neo-Gothic architecture,
which ensures it
wages passive war.
Above all, the
Danube drowns
the past, and
fills its mouth with mud,
until it spits the
present out. In Pest—
completely flat,
completely
therapeutic—spas
divide the soul.
Thermal notes from
underground
massage the
chessboards as they
chat with old men.
In red Speedos,
with fat emotions,
old men sweat
out their
intrusive, monosyllabic
thoughts. Sweating
verve—drops
of verdant verbs,
like dying —
Turkish tiles in
the ornate palaces
maintain a
terribly unharmed point
of view. Echoes
turn their faces to
the palace walls.
The sunbathers
brainwash their
scatterbrained
colossus, in case
midnight comes
to a screeching
halt, or morning
shrieks. The steam
room’s stupid
capstone
corroborates the crashing
lullaby of the
outdoor fountain, as
the healing waters
swim laps with
memories of St.
John’s knights.
Somehow, the mist
trampled trust
issues in the mud.
Our friendship’s life
expectancy voted
with its feet; in
fact, was feet
personified: we dunked it
in a tank of Garra
rufa fish, to feed
them silver scraps
of dead skin, in-
tolerance and
satisfying explanations.
(“Funny blades
nibble fictions,”
you said.) The
smoke and smack of
looks back is some
kind of joke to wave
pools. Twice
blessed, the whirlpools’
jets refuse to
freeze. The cold plunge
pool and café
beers, from the first,
perfect a frost,
but let the lady-killers
win. “It’s better
than the best!” they cry
into a silver sky.
Not overthinking
our day and age,
the Danube moves
wet snow west now
and then. Private
triumphs burn up
contradictions,
like those saunas:
like a cigarette.
It was then that
our laughter’s blood
became solid mud
with a defective
heart. Why the
Danube blew you out
of town, blew you
back and out again
without a call, is
anybody’s bluest
guess. What about
the Danube’s song?
Nobody’s wrong or
safe inside it! Why
these eastern
feelings trample my
western half is
what a dignitary soaks
in phony false
imprisonment to ask.
