Looking Through Windows

We walked along
the river
as cars
zipped by, honking at
nothing,
lights blaring.

The bar across
the road
(used to be a cinema)
way back
in the 1950s – or something
like that – buzzed
away the night
for something, and

a girl, who looked
vaguely familiar,
crossed my path,
asking to be
recognised.

And all this
time
we were
asking
where it was.

We thought we
cracked it
long ago, but

it carried on
and people had
faces sure
enough –

they looked people-ly,
but decades of
walking the
streets had skewed
our vision.

The cut-ups
of them
articulating the
city – hence
life – were
thrilling,

but?

I thought I knew
where you
were going, yet
cyclists
belled by, and
the river swelled
to encompass
a kind of
drowning.

but not quite.