IN A FOREIGN CITY



The news of your death
wakes me like the touch
of invisible fingertips
quiet on my face, waiting.

Out in the street morning light
blinds, though the hills
behind the city are swollen
with the belly of a storm.

People walk with a purpose here,
smile with the fixed
white smiles of aliens
or hired assassins.

Lost in the crowd I hear
someone call my name -
I turn and see your face
vanish among theirs.

The storm drifts down
over the city. I lean
against a wall, watch
shadows lose their shape.