No tourists’ eyes or poet’s words to spark

her back to life, Panther grows bored; shape shifts

 and slithers through the bars out of the Tear

Garden into the city at large. Grows wings

to give her legs a rest and hide above

the crowd; a face fit for a husband’s fancy

woman will come in handy later. She thinks.

Flicks, now and then, just for the fun of it,

a snake’s tail dangling in the faces

of freaked-out passers-by.

*

As Alexanderplatz thins of its evening

crowds, she takes a spin around the Fernsehturm,

then comes back down to earth to dawdle down

past the graffiti art that graces bits

of the wall still up and wonders how Joseph

or Adolf might have built a city better

than this. Divided now still. She gave Speer

that idea. What did they do? They fucked it up,

of course. Social Democracy’s for dorks,

she thinks. The weedy Weimar liberals, worthy

about their patient pointless work. Better

the hooded fang and claw. She thinks. The scent

of musk. A specter exhales from Panther’s

yawning jaws and settles over the urban

blight like smog. “Timeless inscrutability

is such a drag”, she sighs. “Better to make a splash”.

And pops into a public toilet to slip

into high heels and shocking pink, smacking

some blood-red lipstick on, and squirting cheap

perfúme named for a teenage popstar round

her teats and jowls. Calmly she checks into a club

that does its level best to capture the mood

 of Old Weimar, zwischen den Kriegen; swings

hips; winks at the barman, as if she owned the joint.

That works. And so she probably will before

the night is out, she thinks, eyeing the drunken

cripples’ poker cards. None notice the tail.

Old Mephistopheles himself could saunter

in and none would spot anything untoward.

She pops a cigarette into a superciliously long

holder held between her fangs; hugs a pink mohair

boa and muff tight tó her to hide the wings

and claws; lies back; calmly enjoys the show.