After a wet spring, the rattan mat
that spent May caught in a maple
looks like hair, a note of horror
on a cul-de-sac, blowing out kinks
under lamplight. The modest row
of semi-detached homes pull
their blinds at my tower block,
making a good show of being
put upon, poor things, their
petunias. Sky of bright rust and
soapy aquamarine. A half lemon
wrinkles, extrudes slick seeds
and the flies appear. I don’t know
how I do it. How the city does it,
constantly appearing as paper,

collaged and aswim in emulsion,
then tipping over into dystopia,
white cell count of the expressway,
the cellophane chill, the organic
chicken. I love graffiti for being
a constant among the variables.
Least aware when I need milk
for the morning, the unplanned
script is everywhere its own fiat
and mark of lives asking I license
some unseen assembly. In one
version of living a non-viable midlife
under the present aesthetic, I’m
to reach people, I take it, my laser
pointer, my pager, though the last

I saw of them they waved happily
from a quayside bar in Rotterdam,
glad to know I was away safe, or
away, and would damage no more
of de Kooning’s mom’s hotel.
Europe’s like that, awash in names
and hard drugs. In Rotterdam I sat
in a very narrow folding seat while
Tranströmer played ‘Piano Concerto
for the Left Hand’ which Ravel
had written for Wittgenstein’s brother
who’d lost his right hand in the war.
A vessel bursts in my right eye.
A vessel leaves port bound for my
right eye. Imagine the right feelings.

Photograph © julian