ODE TO THE CITY

Why don’t you leave me? Go your own way,
display your tacky, outdated fares:
rattle you markets,
strut your fountains,
roll out acres of your stairways,
lure other fools onto the sticky paper of your squares.

The sunsets you conjured!
You grew your own salty crystals
of morning silences.
You seriously considered
importing a full-scale sea,
some pelicans, Siamese cats, a Waterloo, a couple of Fatimas,
all for my sake.

You spurted watchmakers' shops
all over the place
and minty lozenges of skating-rinks
in lieu of caves of ice.

I grew tired of your mouldy eccentricity,
of your provincial largesse.
Other cities were tugging at me,
blessed with real history, endowed with real sea.

So why now, again and again,
you sneak into my dreams
and stretch out your clumsy paws?

Another June is gone.
No freedom is gained.
And every city I visited, built, conquered, commissioned, destroyed,
has faded into your blueprint,
watery and faint.