London

what you have is the forward march of time
these rains come and they pour
the three black-coated strangers with blue plastic bags
on a foggy street punctuated by cars going the wrong way
guffawing, barrel-chested, smokers in the winter

for those fleeting seconds you wish your souls could trade places
transiently escape things that drain you
but you are stuck with leaves in a gutter after a thunderstorm
browning, rotting, an unanticipated natural decay
in this place you thought had no seasons

the only respite from self-smothering angst is
one foot in front of the other
the forward march of time

Then and now (and then again)

Times change
like handwriting, painstakingly
formed straight lines deliberately dragged
perpendicular to two solid green lines
and one dotted,
metamorphoses into scribbles, illegible scrawls
on napkins and post-its and prescription pads,
cursive the nuns would have rapped your knuckles for
but now you lost the will
time, precious time, has robbed you of the discipline,
the neatness, the straight laces and the luxury to sign your whole name.
"What a shame,"
your father says, as even he
behind the fog of cataracts
perceives that something has been lost.

Times change
like love in its infancy, replete with letters and melodies
dripping with rainwater and snow and sleepless nights of poetry whispering itself into your idle ears
romances fade with distance and masochistic employment
until sweetness is gray and kisses
are neutral clouds that may rumble emptily and carry storms out west or simply
dissolve into bland blue skies
(until the seductive lock of hair caresses your temple
like fingertips whose ridges you never forgot
and you wonder
if your heart will ever be more
than a music box,
a curiosity in an antique shop
with a cracked lid
a scar from when containing yourself
contained you.)