there was an old man

on the train from antwerp

no – sorry

brussels

and it had been raining

turning the fields to mud

we were waiting on the wrong bus

man tells us:

they come or they don’t

I wondered if he was afraid

of being alone

of what the night has promised him

who he was going to see

 

suddenly city

highway one moment

fortifications following

everything exploding

outwards in sooty starbursts

pockets of suburban dwelling

if you go to the outer walls

climb the steps of windmills

see there, the fine lines

where the city

rolls outwards

into stiffer forms

 

three hundred years

quarantined arterial waters flowed

that feeling remains

the one of a fever never sweat out

a sickroom never aired

a window half-open

the burst of late stage feeling

approaching the moment of combustion