A clock has stopped at quarter to nine this morning.
The family is laid out, as if for three caskets,
sprawled over damasked leather furniture.
A bivouac of Americans tramps through streets,
searching out stragglers of the Viking SS troops.
This could be Freud's study in the Berggasse,
but for Herr Lisso, city treasurer of Leipzig,
who sits with his head upon a marble desktop
as if lost in thought. Frost streaks
the open windows--they've all three
just taken a dose of cyanide, cheeks empurpled,
like co-conspirators of Oedipus.
The daughter in a pressed Red Cross uniform
maintains the calm of her life, pressing between
two fingers her lover's locket or a charm.
The impeccable wife's mouth trickles blood
that spots the Turkish rug. Yellow parchments,
medieval family trees, scattered cinders,
as Lisso merely folds his hands and waits.
A radiator lisps. Beyond it only
the shrill of a magpie by the river can be heard.

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