After attending a lecture

on Scandinavian skaldic poetry, scowling

I have sat down to dine alone, taciturn,

and I ordered, just because, Norwegian salmon

and Danish beer. Iceland lies

very close to this table tonight.

My sadness

is like that treeless island today;

like its winter or its night, my soul.

(Diners watch me from other tables

perplexed that I set down symbols

on a paper that they know is not the bill

nor the credit card receipt:

I am a barbarian here, I speak in poetry,

that dead language which no one understands any more.)