FUGUE

He alights, never for a moment thinking of those

who waken frantic with the chill of his absence,

and moves through a city superimposed on itself.

So many statues no longer landmarks

 - yes, it was here we used congregate - no -

it comes back, the almost-pleasant anxiety

that the last bus might be gone, night opening

its walkways, the damp smell of scattered leaves.

But now this new pnic at the ground giving away.

It is time that slides from under his feet.

When did he hear the story of that amputee saint?

Something stirs in the blood thinking of it.

He's here on pilgrimage, what else could it be?

To lay on the porch table the ashes of a life

that once seemed clear as morning. Traffic, contamination,

impossible to imagine the breath of clean country.

The street is a long vein bleeding from both ends.

And there's a side road to the pleasure garden.

Or was that a painting? There were familiar faces,

names that fitted, the right key taken from the pocked

at the end of an excursion. There were no fragments.

Now the moment is a shattered mirror...

A shop with everything on the shelves but books,

how the heart sped coming up those stairs,

covers ranged like bodies in a dance hall.

Could he have blundered? What happened to those trees

outside? Now there will be no seasons

measured, no angled light trace day along a wall.

Not here, for him. The queue at the till is suddenly

the jostle by the hatch of a student pub,

it swells for a moment, shelters like a bush

before the dread of what it has become

casts him on an island in the street,

praying that the smell of a dirty river

will lend a bearing to his stranded feet.

The signals' change. The flow. The city his, not his.

There are palms in the front gardens. When 

did this happen? Or did it? Too long on his own,

his skin itching for sand and salt air. Why

is everything just beyond reach, in front, behind?

There is no centre to the wandering hour.

Somewhere in the map of his mind is a dot - a station,

a growth: himself in slow devouring motion,

prowling the city of himself.