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As everything escalates
and speeds up around us, we pile
white lines thicker
and thicker.
I can’t stop
talking and you can’t stop
talking and we can’t stop
talking
until everything
is noise noise noise
—all staccato, no rests.
We race towards the finish line.
In the morning,
we awake in your flat
on Caledonian Road with head-aches,
and coat our mouths with hot coffee.
For breakfast, I make us hash browns
and fry eggs. I stroke your hair like a conductor’s
finger on a baton, as the stove sizzles in the background. After,
I take the tube back to London Bridge
to sleep Sunday away.
That night, when I awake,
I walk along the Southbank, and stop
to sit a while on a bench and stare out
at the Thames. I look at the Shard’s glowing eye
lurking over London through foggy
nights like this one. I call you
and say I love you and you say
I love you back, but we both know
this is untrue. We try to glue together
what we fear has fallen apart
already, but these words
actually act as catalysts
for our downfall. Soon
I’ll move back home
and you’ll stay here in London.
We’ve read our scripts already.
Playing us into Act One, the Overture
spanned our entire time here together.
Now, playing out the second act, the threat
of the closing curtain lurks. I worry
what I will become without you.
Mine, is a story of resurrection.
You made me
man again, after I had become
so soft and womanly. My Hilda,
what would I be without you?
Solness would have died
regardless, but without his woman
as his guide, he would never have reached
his greatest height. Or, perhaps,
you didn’t save me
at all? Perhaps,
it was the grandeur of this city, and the
available anonymity obtainable
within its nine zones.
Though London is a large city,
even its landscape concludes.
And yet, your bedroom
feels forever, despite
the fact that its entire area
can be contained
within the glass of a mirror
standing against your wall.
As our bodies intertwine,
the sounds of a cityscape
sing us lullabies
until we awake
the next morning;
untangled, on opposite sides.