Over a year, close to two.
I am passing through for work
and to see a friend,
our communication meagre,
reduced to pixels on a screen.

Rue Sigefroi, one of the city’s arteries.
Clotted cream buildings,
concrete mugs clogged with flowers.
I see French, German,
the country’s own compote of the two,
umlauts sprinkled like confetti.

He has invited me for coffee.
There is a gangly embrace,
smiles blooming on our faces.
Wine bottles, maybe empty
tickle the top shelf,
books half-blotto behind the sofa
where I sit as he orders, my face in the mirror,
all wiry hair and pips of stubble.

The cup comes accompanied
by a dice of brown sugar.
Immediately he invites me for dinner.
A gasp hurdles out of me, stupidly.
I accept. He tells me this is excellent news.
We fill in the spaces
of our ever-growing crossword puzzles.
As you do, a lot is glossed over,
metaphorically kicked under the carpet.
He has no intention of moving back
but his father, he says, is unwell.
His image cabasa-rattles to the front of my mind,
the man who introduced me to Prufrock.

- The meal this evening is pleasant.
His wife plonks a quetschentaart before me,
galaxy of singed plums,
a star in Van Gogh’s view over the Rhone.
An occasional judder of laughter between us.
The evening begins its routine for sleep,
the sky embarrassed with clouds
over the Alzette, our stomachs content,
our friendship granite-solid.