Your City of Dawn

The sound of a horn snaps me awake from my daydream
I am walking down a city street counting the cracks in the pavement
The day light is slowly turning to evening
And the smell of wet leaves drifts through the grey air
I pass through the people and I love this about your city
I could walk through streets that have interesting unfamiliar names
Sometimes I would stop and inspect the stone work on a wall
Or the shape of a park fence
Other times I would walk with a military sense of purpose and urgency

I climb up the stairs to your apartment
The night is closing in and the air is a cool heavy musk
The light hits the wall in thin white stripes
And out of the window
A blast of radio
Transistor accompanies
My boots tap heavy on the steps
Staccato gun-fire ratt-atatt-tatt

I stand on your doorstep for a good minute with my hand on the door
My palm flat against the wooden grain
And remember that Once upon a time
I came to your door
And you would open it with that look in your dark eyes
That look of desperation
Of a prisoner waiting to be let out for his evening exercise
Your hands dragged me into your cage
With those fleeting moments of touch
My body spoke to yours in a language
Too complicated to despiser
The meaning existed apart and beyond our comprehension
As though it was an alien language from a long forgotten time

What transpired between our bodies was the simplest act in the world
If only our world was not broken and beyond repair

I turn my head and press my ear against the door
Press my eye socket to the peep-hole
Inside the lounge-room behind the curtain of African beads
I see my skin shed on the floor
I see your hand pick it up, hang it on a clothes hanger
And hitch it over the corner of the hall-way door
I see your lips move as you talk to it
As though it is a person with a name
Talking as though it is flesh and bones with a beating heart and
I suddenly twist my body against the door
Till I am standing with my back flat against it
My fingers push
And I fall forward
Taking this moment with me and
All the moments that you missed
When I slipped away from you at dawn.

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