I used to meet him at the coffee shop,

the one in Remal, lovelier

than any of the ones we visited in London

I used to write

I used to feed the birds 

I used to write poems

on the roof of our house, 

he always asked that we feed them when he grew 

too frail to walk up there himself.

I used to write poems when I believed  

there were people to read them,

I used to buy seeds for the birds

in cities in America, loneliest

of any of the places where we sought refuge

I used to tend the roses my mother planted

I used to feed the garden every October,

turn over the fragrant earth,

tuck the tulip bulbs in six inches deep,

let the heart-shaped katsura leaves, first a pale yellow

I feel like a ghost

then apricot, then ocher, then 

finally a kind of mud-brown, decay

Maybe I’ve already died?

slowly above them in the rain.

I used to love a first rain

I used to find a poem 

I used to live here

in strands of speech, I used to believe

or did I? It’s long past time

I used to dream

to ask what is worth believing

in the silence of thousand-ton bombs.