A Small, Plain Poetics of Those Days

After training at School No. 4 or 5,
that is, at elementary school—years later
the numbers blur together from afar—
when at night or in the twilight

we wandered slowly back home;
our good habit was to stop
at the buffet in the corner of the square,
and there, just inside at the beer tap,

to order a mineral water in a glass
or a black, fizzy Kofola—
all for exactly one crown—

and slake our thirst.
That was our small, indulgent ritual
as the neon will-o’-the-wisps gazed in silence.