Covert Operations

Sensing a first-born son
loved too much
to depend on them
for more than stories
they can afford to tell,
patients view me
with night-vision glasses,
a man who drags his feet
down foreign streets,
past middle-age
churches, ruins lit by starlight
and a crescent moon
in pursuit of intelligence
from the past.
And they've guessed
I ride trains facing backwards
to see what is left behind:
crumbled chteaus and orchards,
the dark distillation of refineries
stacked against gray rivers,
swans flying their secret, silvered tracks.