Last night a pigeon with perfectly clean feet
landed on my shoulder,
pecked at the chain around my neck -
and, little did we know it then,
I was appearing somewhere else entirely
thousands of miles away.
Tomorrow night, all being well,
I will sit and look out of a high window
remembering this time last year,
tracing the silhouettes of buildings for similarities –
the intonations of closed curtains, the sky,
the differences between feelings now
and feelings then – how much whiter scars,
how much tougher feet, how much fixed the broken.
For now I will sit alone in bed and feast.
I will eat beetroot, cured meats.
I will eat strawberries. There will be wine -
until my hands are red to the wrists and shining.
Then how much covered the passions,
coral-still and silenced.
