The Fly

Another of your letters, Cilea, and the paper goes
for weeks in my pocket, folded, unfolded, becomes soft
as cotton while the words fade and have to be guessed at;
or, better still, replaced with words I wish you’d written,

wish you’d write. As for the envelope, I’ve licked the flakes
of gum along the seal, and fancied I tasted you: the candy
of your lipstick and a haunting of Duty-Free smoke.
You taste of airports, Diplomatic Clubs, Central Committee shopping malls,

while I’m the bluebottle on his flypaper turnstile, pumping
the sugar from the poison, twisting in the dead breeze,
riveted by glucose hits… I’ll sink deeper and deeper
into the white shallows of the page, what I remember of your eyes.



Leaving Do

An ordinary day at work, except that it’s your last:
the pull of the new job, the new house… you’ve only been half-here,
living out of suitcases – sometimes with me, sometimes
...