IF HERE WAS SOMEWHERE ELSE:

Will it be the hot train? Will it be the cold train?
Will it be John Coltrane muttering ‘A Love Supreme’?
As we ride into the sweat box of the city of dreams.
Remember to sit on the side away from the sun, plug in
your ears & disconnect or open up & let it in. The day,
the light, the perfumed cacophony, the carnival clattering
of conversation poetry, the life eternal, the story passed
from mouth to mouth & ear & hand, the dance, the romance
of all this if only it was any other country?
Last night, we sat out under the stars watching winking lights
cross the sky, imagining we were somewhere else & this was
someone else’s home we’d rented for a week.
“How amazing it would be”, we’d say,
“if only we could stay here forever!”

(K)