Two pigeons courting on a streetlamp’s armature –
they’re briefly silhouetted on the patched façade
of an apartment block. Nothing comes of it.
One’s left to mark time on the sun-warmed metal.
Friday evening and things undone will have to wait.
My diary is the lazy dog stretched out on the pavement.
Displays of stacked vegetables attend their moment.
If we have grown old, it is only as gourds grow old –
we are all texture. In these early hints of twilight,
trams shriek like the wind in a translated poem
and overheard language unravels like birdsong.
Proximities and likenesses proliferate.
The blurred hour concedes. Skies thicken.
The last sun of the day, our late supper.
Image: Marina Shiderova; text: Tom Phillips
