Engelbert, don’t leave your suitcase here
you are not staying
and stop humming that song about
“Her head upon my pillow”
It makes me think of Mary Stewart’s
hers they laid upon a black silk cushion,
her executioners cried,
men can be so sentimental about women
they have abused.

Martha Hari,
the bewildered, working class tart,
they called her a spy
and shot her,
later in the officer’s mess they drank to her memory
and made her into a legend.
Engelbert take your suitcase and leave
I won’t let your sentimental crooning swish through my head,
it’s four in the morning
for heaven’s sake!