Beyond all reasonable calculation,
he wonders at the wild parabolas of swifts
on a late summer evening in the old town.
How they scribble across the square
from obtuse eaves and guttering
with the acute grate of chalk on slate,
cursive and black as serifs,
in fonts for lost utterances about a city
built between great wars and pandemics
on forgetfulness.
The hotel owner waters her window box
spilling with porn pink geraniums.
Over the cobbles a priest picks with a cane
to the basement throb of techno.
Weekend breakers lean rented bicycles
against the café table to read a plaque
about a famous chemist who moved away.
A drunk with a crushed can smokes
on the drunken bench where drunks go.
Cats unfold from the gable’s end.
The last sun peels away from roof tiles
leaking into the faint cloud until the sky
can add no more.
Night’s subtraction begins
behind shutters and mortice-locked doors
between sleepers and dreams which visit
unbidden those who need them least.
Euclid observes the end of geometry in the modern age
(Mark Fidis)