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Caroline Natzler

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Neighbourhood cafe

I wrote you the first airmail here,
lunchtime chat and chatter
root-warm smells of chips and damp coats
people busy with their lives
being where they are, as it should be

only this misalignment of space

my life’s oxygen drawn away
then as now, by the glow
deep inside your sleep, turning
this hour of darkness before your Pacific dawn
when you’ll wake, one eye still shut close,
reach sure as a migrating bird
for your Starbucks morning
water your garden gently
each seedling one by one
water pooling round, circle after circle
until your patch of earth
is brimming with dark, quiet planets

and though I know now
dwelling with you there would feel as elsewhere
as here, in this warm corner
shaped to me like my childhood home
among people who are not you
and though I know now
gravity – weary from endless flying
there’s no secret force of nature to seal us close
no ease of passage between our lives

and though, love, this is how it will be

I wish.
Caroline Natzler teaches creative writing in London. Her collection, Design Fault, was published by Flambard in 2001.

Page(s) 43

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