À l’avenir
On the first dawn when I wake up alone,
there will be no more laughter echoing out
in the ornamental comfort of morning light,
no more soft caresses at daybreak,
no more stolen kisses on borrowed time.
Upstairs in the glass menagerie, never again
will you stand so tantalisingly close:
sweat, cologne, tobacco—no more.
Will I still feel this way, I wonder,
when that first day comes,
or will I have settled for someone
less like you and more like me:
familiar and comfortable,
in all the ways you are
strange and unsettling?
Will I still be able to pick out
your face from a crowd,
feel its reflection sting the back
of my eyelids like an asphalt haze?
Or will the shimmering lights just flicker
and fade away, like the goodbye
you never bothered to say?
In a parallel universe, on another first day
I will have followed you forever,
straight into the vintage suburbia
of your peripheral gaze, just because
you didn’t care enough to stop me.
