the iron lace highlights a corner of the edifice catches a moonbeam, reflecting into the masked eyes of a robber tiptoeing like a chorus dancer. a couple clink glasses, filled with wine. the waiter hears a feather floating to rest on terracotta. on the street below a woman with a bun has departed the gallery, towards the window of a man hardly known. she wanders through a courtyard. frames with eyes scrutinise footsteps. heels echo in the square. she glimpses in the reflection an indistinct moon. another illusion. a fat bald man jumps on a bus. she's obsessed by that portrait and had read in the news stories of post-war posturings, a curtain imposed by a rip. romance in the window & she never witnessed dessert. somehow in the city a forest of trunks hides a power-blue sedan & a man with a gun. she can't remember what she's done. her sister escaped with a bag filled with notes. dull clues. a uniformed team takes their cues. they talk to strangers. she doesn't often do that unless in a shop, for an order, or a bank vault with her code. the plot mechanically drawn like the woman by her easel in her 50s frock, trying to convince the telescope he's the one. a siren wails as she arrives at a different streetscape, blinded as a gaslight catches the diamond necklace of a different diner with a man who may or may not be her betrothed. she tried to call. no answer. where did Norman go? black birds flock & swoop overhead, hardly noticed against fading stars