She takes me out for a coffee

She says: Stav, pull yourself together. She
mentions my name at the start of each breath,
like a pulse, Stav, I’m worried about you, you
mistake espresso for water, don’t you, do you
have time to rest, and look at your hands, Stav,
I’m talking to you. She strokes my hair and orders
me a soup. Then she takes her bag, the flight’s
at two. I take an extra shot and almost on impulse
ask: stay. There’s the Heathrow Express, she says, already
startled, then the flight, another flight “and you know
how my blood pressure’s like”. She says she’d call.
She doesn’t. It’s too far, another continent. It’s always
been another continent. And I miss her, the way
I’ve always missed her, calling and pulling my name.

 

Leaving London

Once again, it’s last year’s summer.
Outside, the city cities air and air

of traffic’s stardust and some skies. We sit upstairs
and watch the window open like an open

question. We talk of leaving and leaving but
it feels like paper plans, the kind of plans

that aren’t supposed to last the summer,
which, once again, is here. But it’s November,

and we let the rain’s staccato
and the wind of outside’s proper winter

try out the glass. Our first visit since we left,
we’re almost tourists but unlike tourists,

there’s this feeling we could take the Northern
Line back home. In fact, we walk

as if we feel at home in what
they call King's Cross St. Pancras,

Euston road, Charing Cross, whichever
of this city’s intensities that pulls or pushes

us like paper-cups, back here, where even
the rain falls into place. Look,

I start to realise last year’s summer,
or whatever, is going to roundabout for some time,

until I’m ready to leave it here, where
I tried to put our things in a clear-cut bubble

wrap or recycled papers or anything,
but everything closed and open-ended.

Back at King's Cross, an extra shot to-go,
I tell myself it’s us who chose to leave,

but as we take the train away from the cities of London,
I feel, again, as if the city’s leaving me.