We existed there—roving through time like the
party boats adrift, whimpering away their last song.
Rooted against every instinct, we stubbornly are,
though even the river shivers under the
midnight blue skin of space.
I have stranded reason in the daylight,
forgetting how the moon’s crescent cradles
my secrets, nearly tipping them in your ear.
Courting this memory like a fool—
a dream that evaporates upon waking,
fraying more at the seams with every
attempt at recollection. In a better world,
I would transform into portal of truth,
mapping the blueprints of this night
in every way but the fabled fashion I desire.
Would I still remember your gaze,
so arresting that it confounds mine?
A fugitive, I leap from the cathedral to the city’s eye,
then melt with the amber strokes under Blackfriars.
Could I still let you draw my hair back to
pick a misery, one that beckons softly
and glistens tenderly, eager to trust
like a lily from the earth?
As credulous as Gloucester, my fictions
a solvent for my facts. The walls with which
you say I banish you keep my brimming inkwells
as still as the discontent of winter, yet
they remain as leaden as the Thames below,
Because when you say things like
“The city was mine like never before”,
I can’t help but raise my quill,
and I am a lover for as long as I write.
precious 