Decoherence

I remember the fire

before the building existed.

~

Not metaphorically.

~

I mean I stood inside the smoking frame

twenty years earlier,

burning my tongue on terrible coffee,

listening to a man in an expensive coat explain

why the city would survive itself.

~

Behind him,

a maintenance worker quietly stole copper wire

from the wall.

~

Neither of us mentioned it.

~

The pigeons were already dead then.

~

~

In 2041

you leave me beside a flooded tram stop

after telling me,

very calmly,

that you no longer wanted a future.

~

Your fingerprints remain warm

on the takeaway cup.

~

Yesterday,

I found the same cup

inside a museum display

labelled:

~

EARLY CLIMATE ERA DOMESTIC OBJECT

~

A child asked his mother

what coffee tasted like.

She said:

“Bitter.”

I almost interrupted.

~

~

My father dies twice.

First in hospital.

Then years later

while I am choosing tomatoes

under supermarket fluorescent light,

when I suddenly realize

I can no longer remember

the sound of his laugh.

~

My brain replaces it

with the tired hum

of an elevator motor.

~

I stand there too long

holding the same tomato.

~

A woman beside me says

“you gonna marry it?”

~

I laugh harder than the joke deserves.

~

~

The war begins

during dessert.

~

Somebody is explaining wine.

Somebody else is crying in the bathroom.

My phone keeps vibrating

with traffic alerts.

~

Outside,

drones move over the river

soft as migrating birds.

~

When the bill arrives,

we still divide it evenly.

~

I almost start an argument

just to hear somebody care

about something small.

~

~

Three years after the end,

the nightclub remains open.

~

You dance terribly,

all elbows and delayed rhythm,

and I love you with the exhausted caution

of somebody carrying glass downstairs.

~

Nearby,

a man in an expensive suit vomits quietly

into a decorative plant

without interrupting his conversation.

~

The bartender still wipes glasses

even though there are barely customers left.

~

His hands seem frightened

when they stop moving.

~

Above us,

the disco ball turns slowly

like damaged astronomy.

~

~

Tomorrow,

they will demolish the observatory.

~

Last week,

I was seven years old there,

looking through the telescope,

certain adulthood meant answers.

~

The astronomer smelled faintly

of cigarettes,

dust,

and rainwater trapped in wool.

~

I wish I had loved people

with the concentration

I once gave telescopes.

~

~

The train arrives late in 1998.

The train arrives late in 2036.

The train arrives late

after seawater enters the underground platforms.

~

A teenager rolls her eyes

and complains into her headphones.

~

Somewhere behind us,

a man laughs so hard

he starts coughing.

~

Some machinery survives

through pure embarrassment.

~

~

When we finally meet,

it happens long before you are born.

~

You stand ankle-deep

in black seawater

inside the drowned cathedral district,

holding your shoes in one hand

like somebody leaving a wedding

they stayed at too long.

~

Your mascara has run slightly.

You seem cold.

There is salt drying on your lips.

~

Far behind you,

through flooded arches,

someone is laughing too loudly

at something unimportant.

~

I already know your face.

You already know

we fail.

~

Still,

you smile at me

with the exhausted tenderness

of a species

that continues lighting candles

inside collapsing rooms.

.