The country you have come to
Is strange and bewildering.
They do not speak your language,
The alphabet is different,
The road-signs unfamiliar.
The faces and the gestures
You find unreadable.
You are hungry, you are anxious,
But there’s no one you can look to
For comfort or relief.
Sometimes there is beauty:
A light of lemon-colour
Through a tree’s transparent leaves,
The polish of pink marble
On a bridge’s parapet.
These lure you as a stranger might –
She leads you to a secret place
And once there, throat to knee
Without a word or gesture,
Unbuttons her thin dress.
It is that familiar strangeness:
Surprised, and yet expectant,
You know, yet do not know,
What you will now see.
It leaves you desolate.
You wander through vague streets,
A child without his mother
In a crush of giant strangers,
Eager to cry, and certain
She is not to be found.