***
Railroad stations,
Outdoor pedestrian streets,
Pubs –
We used to chance encounters,
No more now.
Touching online –
‘Betweenness’ as choice,
Motionless movements all day ,
Talking to screened portraits…
Which year it was,
How old was I
When giving flowers?
Voice-recordings instead of voices
Come rushing up
With almost the speed of light.
The world of taped senses,
Backwards and forwards,
Frivolous pleasures, tenderness ,
Forms of life –
Where they are?
Mere rough drafts..
The being within me
Is what is left,
When the fly gets in,
I exist.
And from that moment on,
For me
Still
To be able to hear that buzz,
There must have been
No break in continuity,
No single second
At which I had ceased
Or rested from breathing,
From dreaming,
From being with you, my love,
Since that moment
When the pandemic happened
And I can still find it,
I can still find synonyms
And retrace my steps
To the real feeling
By descending to a greater depth
Within myself.
