Wanderer.
From window to window.
Seeking
something
in different glass scenes
from offices and trains and restaurants.
Like she'll see something or someone
or somebody.
And the world will no longer be
a tilted painting.
Clear spring cold
papers over
the scene of the city of her world.
She's freezing.
There is a cafe at the end of the
road
where sidewalk snow has mingled
with trod-on mud
from commuter's shoes.
It's called
'Les yeux qui voient tout'
She can smell coffee and cigarettes and paper and words
and smiles and wine all the way from Bordeaux.
She sits by the window.
Tendrils of hair cut
across her cheek
as she lowers.
The seat is cold.
Legs crossed,
arms clasped,
high-heeled shoes with straps
that cross,
head bent
over a crossword.
'Un cafe au lait, s'il vous plait.'
Last four-letter word pencilled in so
she crumples up the paper.
The eyes don't notice
origami birds dangling above her.
Somehow
they're all angled
towards the glass window
like sunflowers reaching for the sun.
Perhaps the casual
shuttered-open winds
are the birds' oxygen;
reminders that
something
like
sky,
air,
wind,
exist, beyond
coffee-smoked counters.
Reminders that
they could breathe, live, fly
in some other city of some other world.
Cup and saucer on a silver platter
hover over.
Idle fingers
and then a clatter.
She stares down into
the white porcelain pit,
teeming with hot brown
alarms.
It isn't a portal
into
something.
Just a cup of coffee.
Now that is an alarm.
Slow and
shaking,
drip,
drip,
drip.
The milk is poured.
Curling, italic, Persian carpet spread
from the cup's centre into warm-cream brown.
She imagines it is
blood in her heart.
She raises the little silver teaspoon
napping on the saucer and
stirs.
'Le sucre?'
Does she want it all
to be
sweeter?
Two packets, long like
Marlboros,
hastily, desperately dumped
into the mix.
Quick and
shaking,
she raises the little silver teaspoon and
stirs.
Little sugar grains ******
into a vortex,
dissolved and melted into
the city of the world of the cup.
With her little finger, she
dabs
stray sugar grains
on the table
and tries to bring sweetness
to her sleep-thick tongue.
Slow and
shaking,
sip,
sip,
sip.
She's tricked herself
into feeling warmth.
Ticker-tape banner
pops up in her head:
'All of this will not
fix you.'
Porcelain clatter
as cup meets saucer.
Again.
She arms herself with
a cigarette case and a book.
Maybe now she will belong
amongst these people
with sad eyes and burning lips,
clinging on to cups and drinks.
So desperately-lit smoke
trails out of
her warm mouth,
steaming up her face
like a window on a cold winter day.
And meanwhile Camus perches
in her hand.
Her eyes swim
in the choppy seas
of French.
The cigarette dangles,
painting the air grey, grey,
tilting, tilting, tilting.
Slow and
shaking,
she weeps.
Half-aglow in the white sunshine filter
from the glass window,
a woman is wondering.
She drinks her coffee,
wipes her smudged mouth
and leaves.
Nobody notices the wobble
in her high-heeled gait.
She's just a part of
another tilting painting,
another glass scene.
These simple acts,
simple things,
define
the speaking soul.
In a scene of the city of the world.
It's all a metaphor.