If it comes to that, I suppose I could see taking a train
to the limit of a night’s ride, uncomfortable, sitting up
all hours, with the rocking of the carriage an undersong
that would never become a nocturne, the unmoving air,
whiffs of stale luggage and stubbed-out cigarettes—how
sad the telephone wires stretching away absentmindedly,
chair a hard green, a neighbor’s open-mouthed breathing,
the relic of a newspaper splayed on the floor, shoes off,
there a lake suddenly and then gone, now some trees;
if it comes to that, I suppose I could dim the overhead
and close my eyes, returning to the ruined city that I love,
flitting over parapets and rooftops, then alighting to gaze
through a window—a man at his desk, fist on a sheaf
of paper: paperweight of blood and bone, rapture, grief.