Kalopsia
Snuff box with a lady’s portrait
A well-starched man
Picks the spite from his teeth
Listening to Wadi blues
In the hospital cafeteria
Outside there's hidden history
A beer-coloured creek
Swallowed by an underground carpark
Paved over by a street
Although he imagined it
The memory carried weight
He carries the nervous ashes
Of his wife in a samovar
With great practicality
And eunoia
Down escalators humming-
She was full of contrariness
And vacillations
Outside matinee pastry pale yellow light
Draws shadows from the colonnade
Amongst the sprawl and humid myths
He steps out
Knowing he survived
Massive pleasure
In the terroir of his bedsit
A halberd leans against the wall
Opening a book to a page he folded
30 years ago
He turns toward inward pleasure
Stirring a sour vodka
With the stem of a lorgnette
As joy begins to fade
He laughs at suicide
And it's magical shimmer.