Leaving Köln

I’m alone
after you disappear down the steps
without a backward
glance.
Packed up, strapped in, and
ready to be
temporarily transported
into our past, I pay
only negligible attention
to the negligent
safety demonstration.
My vantage point above the clouds,
offering me the feel
of an Olympian nature,
tempts more than any book – so
Rand lies forgotten.
The view is marred
only by the gift
of some poor white woman’s concealer
on my window.
CWK 90.3 S/N – this technical language
as foreign
as the German I tried vainly to recall once or twice (smiling
blankly
when it would not answer), finds
in me
a warming ignorance.
I travel to escape
myself
- never fast nor far enough. But
this you cannot understand,
your tinfoil love
following me. A declared
unromantic,
you love me anyways.
Kehhhn’t help it, you drawl.
You have you’re great
plans/friends/boyfriend,
have found the city you will die in –
something many never do (a fear I fear I feel),
but torture yourself into
an audience
for my take on Tokyo
and make me happy-sad that I gifted you Murakami.
You follow me
in a smile
across borders, cultures, language, my difficult self –
the friend to whom
I never say
goodbye.