In the coffee shop on the second floor of the mall with the big Iki
grocery, the traveler read on his phone that maybe Dylan read Patchen

in the sixties. The music, raucous, is “I work my ass off.” The clerk
just said “one” to him, so he furrowed his brow. His espresso

was one euro, she meant. Absurd. With a glass of water and a little tray,
in a cup that says il Pellino del caffé. His face and mask are quite in place,

plenty of euros holding them up. Despite his ignorance of the language,
he can get anything he needs as long as he only needs things.

A former student wrote, You’re so close to Poland now, come and see us!
The Soviet apartments are ugly but the women are beautiful,

the girls too. There’s Carlsberg on tap—six months ago he drank it
with his son in China. The wind outside is not cold but still brutal,

it blew over a dumpster by the old apartments, he hefted it but
no way could he lift it. There’s golf from South Africa on TV,

Fitzpatrick in third place is -9 and just hit a fine approach. There’s
Jägermeister, Johnny Walker Red. The blond girl scampers up

the aisle and back to her mother, who feeds her a bite. There is
at most one world, said somebody. The girl runs up the aisle

and back to her mother, accepts another bite, drinks Coke
through a straw as her mother steadies the glass, runs again,

nearly crashes into the waitress. A man says something quiet
to the other waitress as he pays. She smiles with her whole face

as she clears his table, sits to eat her own lunch, leans
to whisper to the other waitress. There is at least one world.