Swimming the Vltava

by Spencer Marstiller

I want to be heartbroken
and broke
left outside a café
in the sweat
of a Prague afternoon

to survive on pens
and notebooks
poems for coffee
the words of a waitress
who speaks no English

she’ll bring me ice cubes
and smile
as I put them in my coffee
have toes and sandals
and dark eyes

and speak to me only
in the hidden dialects
of having unsatisfying Czech lovers
and swimming the Vltava
naked


Spencer Marstiller, born in Richmond, Virginia, and educated at St Andrews Presbyterian College is now trying to “make it” as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. His chapbook, Typewriter Umbrellas, is available through St Andrews College Press.

Spencer Marstiller was nominated for Poets Under 30 by Ron Bayes.