1.

In alleyways and docklands I wander
aimlessly with purpose as reels whir
forward, back, reverse, and repeat.

I walk endlessly for miles;
day to night and back again,
listening to a tape replete
with rhythms racking my mind.

2.

In coffee shops and
book shops and music
halls and taverns my
ears hear not the shrill
screeches and squeals of
my fellow man but

Analogue
sounds of an
instrumental played

By one in
some sort of
ethereal plane,

A place that
seems both
familiar and strange;

I shall search
for this place
the rest of my days.

3.

My hair, longer now, falls free
in front of my sunglasses
to ensure my vision is
doubly impaired.

My jacket whips in the storm,
as does my open striped shirt,
but my cravat holds back the
chill in the air.

I’ve felt far too much by now
to make some futile attempt
to hold back the wild winds or
compose myself.

4.

The melodies slow down.
Notes I don’t recognise.
The reels come to a stop;
the batteries have died.

The rhythms flee my mind.
At long last I’m released.
My walk’s now at its end;
must have something to eat.

I remember how,
stumbling back from some awful café that
wanted nothing to do with us, arm in
arm in drunken Bohemia, you cried.

Cried about your family, how you
left them behind beyond the sea;
your relentless insistence that you were
a bad sister, a worse child.

I refused to accept it.
You fell asleep in the bathtub that night.

2. I remember how,
during those soirées, when you leaned across
my lap, arm on my knee, making benign conversation with those at our table.

How natural it came to us, the ease
with which you fell about me,
even when, then, I was with another;
we never addressed that though.

We took a car home that night.
I couldn’t stay with you, nor with her.

3. I remember how,
alone as we were one winter morning,
you lay down all sullen, made yourself small, lamenting the cold dark day before us.

You meekly refused when I offered, but
when I draped you regardless
in my long sheepskin coat, you pulled the fur right round your body for warmth.

Then in silence you watched me.
Playing piano, basking in your gaze.

When one dips their bread
into the sauces and juices
that remain on the plate after a meal,
Italians call this ‘Scarpetta’;

A practice employed when a dish
is so rich, so deep with flavour and emotion,
the diner feels compelled to consume
every drop, every morsel.

Sampling this, one of life’s
most essential and delicate joys,
warrants such devotion, such adoration.
A love supreme is ‘Scarpetta’;

It is the only way I can
describe my desire for you.
I want to drink deep at your well,
become lost in the ritual.

In person this would be much better,
But instead I write this dreadful letter;
We likely won’t cross paths again.
I’m part glad, and part in pain.
My love for you is too intense,
I’ll no longer wait upon the fence;
I must go, and indeed I’m gone.
I hope for you I’ll cease to long.