Wallpaper (Blue)
In Stockholm, ’67, I left
you on the train platform,
going East, falling away,
from lives we had known
bound us to windowpanes,
flower boxes on porch;
You knew of the daylight
nightmares, curious figments
that crossed my eyes:
the fire rains, blood stains,
aftershocks on hard concrete,
I never forgot despite curiosity
getting a better part
of the film reels in mind,
marked up on acid paper,
burning through dawn.
I was stuck, breathless
to the four poster points
in this room where days pass
silent, forlorn, ignorant of
all beyond:
the bombs, the Belsens,
tragic cells for what remained
of ourselves in honour, once
smoke had cleared from
building ash.
You had pinned me, plastered up
to dry and crack, curl at corners,
go jaundice in summer sun.
And there I was remaining,
until a first step forward,
a last gasp of city air.
