Born in Prague

Passing the birthplace of Rilke, I tell John that the great poet died of a cut he received from the stem of a rose.

It's impossible to die that way, he says.

Kafka was born in Prague too, I say.

John and I are walking along a narrow street in the old town of Prague that looks like it could end soon but doesn't, keeps winding on until it becomes another street.

I feel like such a shallow man, who's sitting in a deep cave that's been turned into a nightclub, listening to jazz, but I don't know what John's feeling.

He may be feeling what John Coltrane felt after he'd soloed and was standing just offstage while McCoy Tyner was taking his solo. I don't know for sure but he could be.

Fifteen seconds go by before I stop thinking about what John's feeling.

It's true, I say, Rilke was a very sensitive man, a poet. He could have died via a rosebush. Anything's possible when you're a poet.

John doesn't say anything. Maybe he's feeling like a character in a Kafka story, like anything that's supposed to be true must not be true, must be something else besides what it's supposed to be.

Have you ever read Kafka, I say.

No, John says, but I feel like I have.