‘You’re still beautiful, all things considered,’ – a visitor
pats your wheelchair handle, or we’re a slowing eddy, fast
turning back from a sudden slip-road. São Paulo stop. Stop
memorising us as holiday fit, the big Back Then,
casually Casualty-free. Colloquial heart attacks –
the joke’s on the joke, so humour me. Ditch that nifty trick
(time travel). It lands us wrong, back. It’s all one step two step
and a tragedy under there. (‘Remember’ kills us stone
beautiful.) Mantelpiece us, for later’s trust. I’m happy
with sealable sorrow, tactless visitors we’ll still love.