Sou o último

I'M THE LAST

I am the last Napoleonic soldier. It's almost two hundred years later and I am still retreating from Moscow. The road is lined with birch trees and the mud comes up to my knees. The one-eyed woman wants to sell me a chicken, and I don't even have clothes on.

The Germans are going one way; I am going the other. The Russians are going still another way and waving goodby. I have a ceremonial saber. I use it to cut my hair, which is four feet long.

Charles Simic. The world doesn't end: prose poems.
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1989.