on the other hand
she says to me
it’s not as if it matters very much
if you don’t get any better.
why not
sleep with the window open
in a hundred years time it will all be the same
you’ll be dead
and so will I be
and no-one will know about us
except for some children and grandchildren maybe
and they’ll be getting old too
and they’ll only know
you died sadly
watching television
and I died tragically some other way
and nobody will read your poems anymore
or produce
any of my plays.
listen to that
night moves like a cat
jumping on a counter
you can hear the traffic out there
that slow rushing sound
we could almost be at the sea
but we aren’t
at the sea
are we.

a siren broke her monologue
and cut the seaside shuffle through the air
or perhaps
we could call it a foghorn
if we wanted to go on with it.

anyway
she says to me
I’m cold
are you not cold
with that window open
nice as the night is
cuddle up closer to me
it’ll be a shock at first
but eventually we’ll be warm
and comfortable together.

at 2am I got up to use the bathroom.
the light hit me like a bullet and
the cold got into my feet.
on my way back to bed
I took a 2 second detour
and shut the window. outside
the city air
smelled
like city
and nothing like the sea.