Somewhere in Yorkshire, England, Tears are Falling

These tears are falling in Yorkshire, England,

where it’s raining again, we’re all wearing kagools, and it’s impossible to feel Chelsea.

Every morning someone says ‘morning’

every day I pretend I have somewhere to go.

In a window seat, I drink coffee and city nostalgia sits like an echo

they’ve stopped asking ‘to go?’

I ask a woman with pearls and charisma

‘what’s the time please?’

She answers like it matters, only I know it doesn’t.

She turns and orders skinny latte.

A tall man in a pinstripe suit talks legalese on his cellphone.

I ask, ‘what’s the time please?’ he furrows his brow, hands gesticulating.

Everyone here is complicated, even in Yorkshire

and if these dales and moors can’t offer peace, I must still

long for London buzz and busy

and you.

You are the man on the cellphone

somewhere in London,

furrowing his brow;

I would like to be his signal

I would like to be a cellphone

and for him to hear me.

I would like all suits to hear me.

I would like all suited charismas

who breeze in and out of city coffee shops

to run off to the hills

where they can’t get a signal.

But then I’d only chase more signals in other cities, or woodlands, or coastal paths

where a charismatic woman

tells me the time then asks me

for something—anything,

where another man in a suit furrows his brow,

I wait

until slowly, he smiles.

The espresso machine hisses

someone laughs

a couple kiss.

Passers-by fold away their umbrellas. A cloudless sky sings blue melancholy.

After sunset, a light rain clears the streets, washes me with serenity at last.

Yes, somewhere in Yorkshire

in a drizzle like serein,

tears are falling.

* * * * *

After 'Someone in Paris, France, is Thinking of You' by Alex Dimitrov published in The New Yorker, 3 July 2023.