for Alexandra
What city stays still like a glass-cased clock?
I wish this one did. I can’t let it out of my sight:
the coffee-house I emptied my cup in one day
has turned into a beauty salon, and the houses
I once lived in are no longer there. All my life
I wanted to show someone this strange town,
and now that you’re here I just sit by the creek
and mumble something incoherent in disbelief –
little to do except list the sights in a Guinness
Book of Records way, or explain how there were no
museums or libraries, no interesting ones anyway?
All that hate and here I am. Narrow wooden boats
sail past the bright hotels. This whole country
is like a hotel: a sweaty ride in a glass elevator;
at the ding of the doors, a chance to escape.