(for Sophie)
The tape your mother made me in the summer of ’99
when we, without having considered the practicalities,
would turn with two tongues out of the same head
phrases like: ‘If you’ve never stared off into the distance,
your life is a shame’, and ‘Round here, nobody knows
your name’, etcetera, etcetera, with the studied implication
that ‘round here’ was a dump, has long since parted
from its reel and slumped into the habitual loops and tangles.
And now, suddenly, new dispensations, a new angle.
Are these the makings of nostalgia? Fuck, I don’t know.
But predictable patterns hurt no less for being so. And I
am not coming home today, or, even, tomorrow. Sophie. Hello.